


Play Secretary I'm the Boss

by Bin_Dipper (blueberry01120), blueberry01120



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Aerospace Company, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Assistant Loki, Boss/Employee Relationship, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Sugar Baby, Thor is Elon Musk, Thor is a dick, loki is also a dick
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:14:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 74,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21608134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueberry01120/pseuds/Bin_Dipper, https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueberry01120/pseuds/blueberry01120
Summary: “Secretarial Position/Executive Assistant - Thor OdinsonMr. Odinson is seeking a committed, hard-working individual in an assistant role. Responsibilities will include day-to-day management of Mr. Odinson’s professional affairs. Prior secretarial experience required.Requirements:5+ years experienceAt minimum 3 professional referencesInterpersonal skillsExpertise in technologyFlexibilityPassportPreferences:MultilingualSTEM proficiencyBase Salary: $150,000/yr Total Compensation: $200,000/yr”
Relationships: Loki/Thor (Marvel)
Comments: 174
Kudos: 408





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this throughout the year. Here we go.

Yes, the job description's qualifications listed "prior secretarial experience required," but years of not kebab-ing whatever oblivious asshole had decided to impart their wisdom onto the "wiz kid" today made Loki overqualified to field the sort of egotistical, overcompensating dickheads that frequented an aerospace company. What? All he had to do was translate that tolerance over to doing it while typing and answering the phone. Loki could already do that.

His name was called.

Two different doors separated by a short walk with zero chitchat from the woman with the factory setting 'pleasant facial expression' was nowhere near long enough for the self-doubt to set in. How confident he was, he'd need like half an hour worth of the judge-y silence for it to touch him. Perks of the black body-glove suit. He felt tremendously un-fuck-with-able.

Thor Odinson shook that faith. Fate just loved making life hard for Loki, so it'd decided that Thor should smell like an incense titled "Sex Itself" crossed with this post-night sweat warmth -- and was the ground sucking him in or was that the ceiling floating away? -- plus a hum at the top of his spine that used to be exclusively after-orgasm, but that was now proven to not be the case, so there was that.

On the _Forbes_ cover, sure Thor'd been about seven inches tall, but Loki's mental scale had him occupy a lot less space than he did vertically and horizontally. Holy shoulders of god. His desk had to be made of finger-crosses and hope to not collapse under the metric ton of titanium pushing at his button-down and don't get Loki started on those skull-crushing thighs.

When the door shut Loki alone with Thor, Loki was small. Very small.

He sucked the crushing feelings of inadequacy up and had his hand out as an offering as he got closer to Thor and the realization of how enormous Thor was. Thor's hand was not much bigger than Loki's, but oh was it meaty and rough, and the grip it had. Loki's hand was bloodless white in his periphery when Thor dropped it, which was not hot whatsoever he told his body. "Hi--"

"--you're Loki. I know." Norwegian could sound that good? Well. You learned something new every day. Thor being Norwegian was not one of them because right, Loki and every other Norwegian in the world, Swedes and Danes too as much as they'd have been at pains to admit it, knew that.

It looked like Loki's inclusion of him being Norwegian was so going to pay off.

"You look like you understand the words I'm saying, which is a first. The last nine 'Norwegians' only knew the word hi." Thor moved away--not from Loki, well, yes, from Loki but not specifically. It was more like getting to his chair necessitated moving away from Loki. Nothing personal. Not that it mattered if it were. It did if Thor was going to hire him, but--Thor sat down. "Please. Sit."

Loki did.

What was presumably his resume sat in front of Thor. A stack of file folders to his left no doubt belonged to the other dozen or so applicants out in the waiting room. His laptop, on the other hand, was shut to his right. Thor being a paper guy, for some reason, made sense. Like it was a given. The throwaway man-bun, the minimalist cufflinks, the stubble? Paper guy stuff.

"You're from... Tønsberg, right?" Loki asked, this time in Norwegian.

"I am." Thor intertwined his thick fingers. "You?"

"Hammerfest. It's a city on the brink of falling over into Canada it's that North."

"Can't say I've been. Maybe I'll go one day."

"You could scale Everest and have a better time, but if you are feeling masochistic enough to go, I could help you make it as least unpleasant as possible."

"I'll keep that in mind." The throat clear marking the shift into serious mode. At least Thor did it more naturally than anyone else. "So, why do you want this job besides the money?"

Forward.

"The money is actually one of the last motivations for me seeking this position. That's not to say that it has no role, but above all else, I want this for the experience. I'm always in search of new experiences and any new challenges they may provide."

"That's nice and all, you wanting to use this as a character-building exercise, but I need someone prepared to handle anything that might come their way. I don't have time to wait for you to overcome hurdles and experiment."

"I have two master's degrees, a Ph.D., and another in progress," Loki replied. "No challenge I will encounter working here will remotely affect you. I can promise you that."

"And zero work experience as a secretary."

"I TA'd for some of the foremost minds in their respective fields. And at MIT. You probably heard all the way over in Oxford what that's like. In any case, I'm a better secretary than any person who's called themselves one in history. I have a few Nobel Laureates listed as references. They'll say the same."

"Yes. You have two master's degrees and a Ph.D. You clearly know you're beyond overqualified and don't need this job. What's to stop you from up and quitting in a year, half that when you decide you want another new experience?"

"My Ph.D. in progress, which I mentioned briefly on my application," Loki said, throwing whoever had read it and summed it up for Thor under the bus since Thor was under the impression everyone on his staff was so qualified and so good clearly, "is at Caltech. It's supposed to take five years"--more like three max for Loki--"so I'm here in Los Angeles for the future barring some explosion on campus." He included the "joking" smile in case Thor got any wrong ideas. "Also, I have plans of going into academia afterward, and being able to say I worked at SpaceA underneath the Thor Odinson is a guaranteed foot in the door."

After a dismissive "hm," Thor moved onto the scripted "here is why working here is awesome and how you'll be expected to maintain this awesomeness" part of the interview. He must've gotten tired of hearing how justified Loki was and how wrong his obvious bias against Loki was. It visibly annoyed him to the point of needing to grab a pen to click the hell out of that given what he knew about Loki, Loki could fill all of the requirements of the position and then some. A person as powerful as him did not like not being right.

To the extent that would Loki put it past him to pass him up out of revenge? 

He couldn't. 

"Any other interesting things about yourself you want to share?"

"I'd keep you here all day if I told you everything." Loki received a vaguely amused sound from Thor. "Um, I reached Grade 7 in piano, which is the highest grade if you didn't know, and can play around 85-90% of Chopin's nocturnes off the top of my head. I ice skate recreationally but could've gone pro if I'd had the time. Oh, and I know all of Shakespeare's major plays by heart. I'm a bit of a Shakespeare fanboy. And I'm fluent in Klingon. I tried getting into Elvish, but it felt like learning Finnish all over again. I think once is enough for that."

Was Thor supposed to be wooed? No. But he could stand to look somewhat impressed. For fuck's sake, the man was swiveling his chair back and forth and clicking that pen like he wasn't even in the interview anymore. Loki got it. Thor was not a fan of his. But some credit? Another vaguely amused sound maybe or how about a small smile instead of the flat line of indifference?

"And you're omega, right?"

...yes, Loki was. But for obvious reasons, how could Thor have known that or better yet, felt the need to mention that?

"That depends on whether you want a 'yes' or 'no.'"

"'No' wouldn't be the truth."

"Which is why I was going to say that yes, I am." That was less so the truth and more of an echo of what Thor clearly already knew, which--huh. Things were starting to make much more sense. "You can't blame me for some hesitance. There are a non-zero amount of horse-and-buggy types in this country that have outdated opinions about omega men. Not that you seem like one of them. Call it reflex."

As Thor saw right through that, Loki damage controlled with some roundabout ego fluffing. "Funnily enough, my scent neutralizer is the highest strength available. And I layer them. The body wash, moisturizer, body spray. This is a first, being called out like this."

"I could smell you the moment you walked in here. It's not as foolproof as advertised. But something tells me it's not a product failure." That combined with the dismissal pouring from Thor standing--what was that supposed to mean? "I got everything I needed. I'll call you, alright?"

Despite the canned "corporate-approved" smile Thor told him to get out with, Loki got woken up at 3 am by Thor calling to tell him, "Be here 8 am Monday."

Huh.

Okay then.

## #

Monday at 8 am tried its best to make being smug an effort, but when the door opened up to Thor and his red-pinstriped-pecs stood at what was to be Loki's desk, the smug came easily and plentiful.

Thor's eyes were a lethal hue of annoyed as he stood over Loki, sat down and acquainting himself with the contents of the drawers. Justice, Loki didn't believe in it, but if it were to exist, this was it, Thor swallowing his ego and not fucking himself over by depriving himself of the greatest secretary-adjacent--Loki did secretarial work for Thor, but he was not going to be a "secretary." After all, he didn't have the work experience for that. 

He didn't see how anyone would need it. All he had to do was what Thor was too busy doing important, world-changing stuff in his office to--answer calls from people, some of who Loki'd seen on the news, which was interesting; if those calls were from people that Thor needed to talk to--because everyone "needed" to talk to Thor, it was just that not everyone could--then, politely call into Thor's office to tell him, and if Thor said, "Okay," like he did the few times, transfer it to him. When not manning the phone, Loki read emails, which were also from people Loki'd seen on the news, which was even more interesting because it proved grammar and syntax were not required to be a CEO and that kissing Thor's ass was a global pastime across all income brackets, and forwarded the ones worth reading to Thor while summarizing the others in an end-of-day report for Thor.

Thor('s blood stimulating scent) came to lurk behind him in the middle of a phone call with some guy from the US government and Loki's email reply confirming the meeting Thor has with a rep from NASA. He didn't make Loki nervous. No. Absolutely not. He made Loki's heartbeat skyrocket and his fingers tremor if he didn't keep them moving, and his words came out a little quicker than intended, but they were understood as was that email written and sent.

Loki didn't exhale until Thor went back into his office.

Thor dropped off a "Take an hour for lunch" before going to go get some himself. Socializing down in the cafeteria appetized Loki literally none whatsoever. Building rockets and airplanes would've been a bonding activity for the hundreds to thousands of other employees. Loki'd be running on a treadmill trying to keep up fit in somewhere he had no business being. That was how they'd see it. And if Loki were to fit in anywhere, it'd be the secretary pool, and that spoke for itself.

OpenTable advertised some should've-been-Michelin-starred café a brisk five-minute walk from company campus. It was nice outside. It was Los Angeles. Its tagline should've been "at least it's nice outside."

The barista juggled mentally undressing him, preparing his tea, and trying to prove "I haven't seen you around here before" was successful out of mid-2000s RomComs. His tea tasted like it'd been brewed in a tiny shop in Hong Kong despite her being spread so thin, but Loki didn't need to have spit added to any future orders of it after he didn't call her or try to get her number after sneaking out of her bed ten minutes after she fell asleep. He'd lost a pizza place and the only Scandi restaurant worth anything in Boston that way.

Was that what happened with Thor's last secretary? Had he shat where he ate, and now this was his great redemption by turning the same nature that'd fucked him over to take mankind to Mars?

"Dr. B," the barista called, and some _BBC_ sketch show portrayal of an Oxbridge professor shuffled up with his head ducked to collect the cup and container.

As enthralling as Thor was, the man being crushed in Thor's arm in the Google image search of "SpaceA" wasn't entirely invisible.

Getting back to the office early would annoy Thor, a lost opportunity to be as critical as Thor yearned to, and Loki was never going to pass one of those up.

"Bruce," he said to try to not be punched when he caught up. Loki knew geeks. Believe it or not, they could pack a punch.

Bruce, squinting behind the Atticus Finch glasses, gave Loki a very poor PR smile. "Can I help you?"

"I don't know yet."

Bruce was loathing that he hadn't been blessed with Thor's height to speed up and lose Loki. 

"I'm Loki, Thor's new executive assistant."

"Oh," Bruce said. "Oh." He laughed, very relieved. "Yeah, he mentioned he finally found one after his months of searching. I'm sorry. It's noon. I'm a bit of a nocturnal animal. Brain doesn't start working properly until it's 5:00 pm. But it's nice to meet you." He took the moment to learn Loki's face but stopped like he feared being caught. "This your first day, right? How's the job treating you so far?"

"If it continues like this, I might have to reconsider my life plans."

There was nothing more that instantly endeared someone to you than asking them about themselves. Loki asked Bruce how his day had been like Loki imagined people that looked like him, well-put-together and polished, in a sense everything that Bruce wasn't, never did. It caught Bruce off-guard, and he took several moments to come up with, "Uh, pretty good I guess.

"You don't mind if I come up your way to finish this do you?" Bruce asked at the elevator bay, and Loki invited him to.

Bruce had known Thor since college, pre-SpaceA, pre-fame, and fortune. Bruce had the nuclear codes. Someone that rarely did interviews even in print wouldn't willingly share that with a stranger like Loki, but Loki had three years.

At the table in Thor's lobby, Bruce pushed up the sleeves of his sweater and the button-down underneath it and asked with his mouthful, "So, where are you from?"

"Norway."

"Isn't that something? Bet Thor lit up like a Christmas tree when you walked in."

"He considered it an asset and probably more than the education or references."

"Thor's never been all that impressed by the accolades. He didn't understand why I went back and got my Ph.D. in astrophysics and then the one in MatSci. I said I might want to try for MechE and he looked at me like I'd grown another head. We've already built a bunch of rockets. He doesn't understand why I feel we have anything to prove. He got an honorary doctorate from Oxford for MechE."

"That explains a lot."

"What is the background Thor wasn't impressed by?"

"Three masters, a Ph.D., and one in progress."

Bruce forgot to chew. When he did, he did so with vigor. "Wow. That's -- you're at Caltech then probably, right? What's your field?"

"Chaos Theory, computational chaos theory."

"Jesus. How the hell you end up here?"

"I'm adventurous."

"I'd think so. You're so young. What age did they send you to college? Kindergarten?" 

"Close. I've spent a significant chunk of my life in school. Secretarial work is a nice departure from that."

"I can't believe he hired you. On principle, as a scientist, I'd feel guilty from depriving you of important research time. But then again, I doubt you're struggling to make time for that. I bet you finished your work for the day in 15 minutes."

It was funny, and Thor was opening the door. Laughing never hurt anyone?

Thor's crotch reentered Loki's field of view at the edge as Thor asserted himself over the three of them, Loki, the table, and Bruce.

"Where the hell did you find him?" Bruce asked Thor. "Have you run a background check? There's no way his story holds up."

"Were you looking for me?" Thor asked.

"No. Loki chased me down out at that café, introduced himself, and I ended up back here. You're always telling me I need to get out and 'mingle' with our employees more."

"But Loki's in my department." Thor looked at his absurd silver watch. "And he should be getting back to work. You too." What Loki would've given to have that finger pointed at him like that. "Don't think I don't know that you've been dodging the FAA's phone calls, Banner."

"What happened to you? You used to be on my ass about not taking risks. What's life without a billion-dollar fine for launching a UVA without permits?"

Thor reenacted hundreds of photos of the two of them over the years, patting Bruce's shoulder with a smile like cinnamon maple oatmeal in the dead of winter, fond.

"It was a pleasure meeting you, Dr. B," Loki said.

"Please, no. The girl calls me that because I told her I didn't mind what she called me, but really, it just brings all this attention on me, and I just want to get my food and get out."

"Poor man. What will you ever do?" Thor asked. "Loki, go call Bruce's secretary -- his name is Rick Jones -- and make sure that he has the line prepared for Bruce to call the director of the FAA immediately upon arrival at his office."

Bruce moped like no one else would've been capable of being escorted to the door by Thor. No one could've asked what Bruce Banner was around for after that. He was the only man immune to Thor.

Catching someone flexing in the mirror a hundred times and cutting you off to talk about "football" -- because Thor was absolutely an American "football" fan -- made the _Time_ covers a lot less visionary.

Loki's call with Rick Jones, sounding brown-haired and like comic relief from some nineties sitcom, had served its purpose, but Loki stayed a second longer on the line to let Rick Jones test the waters for a new male secretary buddy, giving him license to ignore Thor proving Loki was not gifted with Bruce's immunity.

"Good luck, Rick." Loki racked the phone and innocently asked Thor what could he do for him.

"Brave talking to Bruce before he's had his lunch."

"Anyone who goes for a Ph.D. is."

"I thought that was 'irresponsible.'"

"Two sides of the same coin really." Loki wasn't going to start this job off fawning over Thor. "You have a meeting with the avionics team in 10 minutes in conference room E."

Despite the best efforts of his heart, Loki subtly enjoyed the existence of Thor during his comings and goings in his crusade to shepherd humanity into space and not leaving behind a smoldering, lifeless rock. It was on fair, given the great sacrifice of personal space Thor's Gargoyling over Loki's shoulder required of Loki. Loki nearly choked down a noodle when he turned around from eating his Thai delivery in the kitchenette tucked in the shoulder of Thor's suite that he hadn't expressly been forbidden from in his defense.

Thor was lurking in the doorway and had obviously been for a little while. However, now when Loki had realized, he was done. "You should ask if I want any in the future."

Oh, yes, it should've been obvious to ask his billionaire boss if he wanted a break from the caviar dusted in protein powder for the addictive Thai takeout Loki's metabolism was going to betray him for one day.

Thor forgave the indiscretion this first instance, however, and let him off with the minor public humiliation of being dwarfed and outshined by Thor. Because while Loki was tall, Thor was taller, and handsome too like the Joes and Svens wished they were, the prince that came running in with an army to defeat the unnaturally pretty despot Loki was.

The elevator was a relief. An enclosed space where Thor's scent laughed in the face of Loki's shortcomings and stuck a mocking hand down his pants. At least no one was around to see the flush he could feel. Thor stared ahead the whole ride to the garage floor.

"Goodnight," Thor told him, and he nodded at the chauffeur leant on the company car waiting for Loki, walking around it. He'd never get in. He had plans for the red vintage Stark that chirped. You couldn't say Thor didn't have taste. 

"See you in the morning," Loki called.

Thor held up a hand.

Good things were going to come of this job. Loki could feel it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *HR alarm bells intensify*

"You can use my bathroom" was not the appropriate way to let your employee know you'd followed them into the bathroom, but appropriate was a concept for the Poors and mortals, neither of which Thor was.

Loki had never washed his hands with such concentration.

One man's doting boss was another's (Loki's) final one. Cultivating the composure of a Roman statue had been a survival strategy that had helped him coast through higher ed and would, he'd expected, into academia or a corporate consulting job, but it turned out that it'd all been ceremony for keeping the expression of pure distilled "What the fuck?" off his face with Thor semi-regularly topping off Loki's sensory memory of his scent stooped into Loki's Personal Bubble.

Loki wouldn't have put it past Thor to have overlooked the perp-walk of perverts that happened a bit up north in LA and the shifting of the social atmosphere away from overlooking boundary violations by management. He'd tattle to HR that Thor made him feel funny closely monitoring him, the person who'd happily never held a secretarial job but was tasking with mediating between Thor, the soon-to-be Leif Erikson of Mars and beyond, and the who's who of the world, and he'd, what, be slipped a million — pennies to Thor, typed a white bread recommendation, and returned to languish in the half of office Caltech had leased to him for the next five (three) years.

Thor was a touchy-feely person by all accounts. After the paragraphs dedicated to painting a picture of the "the beyond shoulder length strands woven out of gold coin by angels" and "profoundly blue eyes" in the _New Yorker_ and _Time_ , the remarks about how warmly Thor welcomed his chroniclers — a hand to the elbow, to the shoulder, to the back — followed suit. The thing was Thor never touched Loki.

Loki's burning back could've stood to remember that when Thor did his hourly rounds, but Thor left space for Jesus — his hand if it was flattened on Loki's back, but it was crucial space. The space said, "Not only does Thor not trust your work, he's also curious about your scent." It was the argument Thor would've made to HR and to the person who didn't need to buzz in (in other words, Bruce) that caught Thor deeply inhaling like the reflection of Loki's laptop did.

"Erik Selvig told me about you," Thor said as he turned the elbow of Loki's desk into a chair. Of all the asses, that wasn't the worst-case scenario. Now, of all the names — not so much.

Loki covertly paused the music his Bluetooth headphone was feeding him and spun the chair around to face Thor. "That vaguely rings a bell."

"He said he taught you. Electrostatics during your undergrad at MIT. He heads the battery department over at Leipter."

"I didn't take him for someone that'd chase the money. Glad to hear he got over that and away from MIT."

"He was already groaning before I'd gotten your last name out."

"Loki as a first name isn't exactly common over here."

"He said that you were probably siphoning proprietary information off to Boeing."

"He's Swedish. Do you blame me for playing with him a bit?" 

"I can't say he told me anything that I hadn't guessed already."

"You'll find me very predictable."

"And Erik said you weren't funny."

"Did he? I regret giving him positive feedback in that faculty evaluation."

Thor was looking at Loki with intention. What intention, Loki could've only guessed, but it was like Thor had zoned out on Loki. That wasn't unnerving — among other things — at all.

"You have a meeting with the operations project scientist and director operations from the NASA's Hubble team in 25 minutes. When they arrive, would you like me to show them in, or should I buzz you?"

Thor's focus broke. The air of miffed assumed its position over him. "Buzz me."

Because it was a Friday, Loki did. 

## #

Spin had been Loki's compromise with the death sentence of biking in LA. He was on-call 24/5, and besides on weekdays, Thor slept eight of those and saved the world the other 16, opening lots of Loki's time for casual research and if the mood hit him, dropping in on the spin class he was paying for.

He was at the end of his 20th mile and dripping for it when his music paused to let his nuclear siren ringtone through.

His finger left behind a sweat smear on his screen. Disgusting.

"Where are you? You need to be here."

Loki ditched his cool down lap. "It's Saturday at 10:00. I didn't know I worked weekends."

"You're spending time talking that you could be moving faster."

"I can sprint and talk at the same time. Cardio. I know you aren't familiar with it but—" Loki was temporarily muffed by sliding a sweatshirt on over his head. "I'll be there in 35 minutes."

"20."

Telling the chauffeur, "Thor says it's an emergency," and tapping into that deep and undeserved affection he had for him and some more sprinting to the elevator got it down to 19.

His jog to Thor's offices did do a good job replacing his cool down lap.

Thor was wearing a heel-print into the ground under Loki's chair. His once over satisfied his desire to see Loki give blood, sweat, and tears to this job because he launched straight into what the urgent matter was: he needed a birthday gift for his mother.

Loki had to check that he heard that right too. "And what do I have to do with that?"

"You're my assistant."

"Your executive assistant."

Thor shook that off. "That was originally what I was looking for, but you're capable of more than that." That wasn't meant as a compliment, more of a statement of fact.

"According to what?"

His response was, "You speak Norwegian," like that explained everything.

"Promotions include pay raises."

"How much do you want?"

"How much can I get?"

"I'll surprise you. You like surprises." Thor's gift of making indifference tingle Loki's nether regions defied reality. 

"If you would've given me time," said Loki as he lowered into a crouch by the file cabinet that he'd tucked the last secretary's folder marked "Thor's mom" she'd left behind into, "I would've been able to shower and look presentable."

"You're fine." Thor's nostrils were flared above the fist he had to his mouth like he'd just inhaled. He did think Loki's scent was his own personal stress ball. He opened up when Loki rose and turned and gave him acknowledgment for once. "Before you ask, no, I don't have any ideas."

Thor had three weeks to come up with some. Given what Thor was like, he needed triple that for it to be good.

The — one, two — five handwriting styles of the five secretaries that'd written in the Frigga Folder — Loki's quick skim had said multiples but he hadn't counted — they kept log of how often Frigga called and what she called for and what their responses had been. One noted Thor did not like his mother being told, "Hey" whatsoever. Thor strongly preferred "Thor says that he loves you, and he'll call you as soon as he can."

Frigga often asked "just between us" if Thor was seeing anyone seriously.

Thor didn't seem very curious of what was in the folder like he'd been in there and done that.

Loki closed the folder. "Take her on vacation. She seems to think you don't spend enough time on yourself, and if you take her, she'll personally see that you're okay."

"I don't have time for that."

"Then make some. You're one of the most powerful people in the world. Don't tell me you can't get two weeks off to spend some time with your mom."

Air huffed from Thor's nose. "What were you doing?"

"A spin class." He tucked a sneaky scraggle of sweat-stiff hair behind his ear. "I bet you can find where you're going to take her without my help."

"I will." Thor heaved himself up like he couldn't outrun Usain Bolt and out-lift Halfthor Bjarnsson right at this moment. The man shrunk the space behind Loki's desk to Big Law summer associate cubicle levels, and topped that by clogging the remaining space with January morning tea. "Stop wearing the neutralizer. It's useless."

"Only to you. You have a super-nose."

"I'll pay you."

"You'll pay me to stop wearing scent neutralizer." Loki rolled his eyes and removed himself from between Thor and the desk. "I am going to go home and shower like I was on my way to. If you need me, you know how to find me."

" _500 grand_ ," Thor texted him when he was in the elevator.

Loki did not deign that with a reply, and Monday, Thor did not tell him anything but, "Call my travel agent and tell them book my mother and I two weeks in Mykonos."

Two weeks of freedom for Loki. He couldn't wait. 

## #

The California Sun-Dried Tomato in the 1930s bootlegger three-piece was Thor's 3:00 pm meeting Alexander Pierce, General.

His hand was made of Cowboy leather and thought it'd submit Loki's hand like all these All-American types couldn't help but try, but you couldn't let the Parisianwear fool you. He took the surprise more pleasantly than the Caltech trustee at that banquet earlier in the summer.

"Please, have a seat. Thor will be right with you."

It was less of a strong suggestion and more of an instruction, but any being that used the two-fingered "sit" gesture Loki had taught his first dog Slepnir (who could rest in the most bone-filled peace, the good boy he was) as Pierce did on his two hard men in all-black didn't think rules applied to them. Like the unspoken one Loki was sure there was that you didn't thrust your junk at a secretary in the 21st century with your hands in your pockets.

"'Loki,'" Pierce was reading from the plaque on Loki's desk. The Americans' Secretary of Defense could read. That was heartening. "What is that? Swedish? No. Old Norse. You've all managed to keep your language untainted by time."

"The Icelandic can only have that honor. It isn't hard to when you're in the middle of an ice sea farther up north than most know land goes. Your fellow Americans think it's where Legolas is from."

Loki couldn't get on any list he wasn't on already.

"You're smart. How did somebody like you end up at a job like this? Don't get me wrong, but secretarial work, it's not rocket building."

"'Somebody like me'? I mean no disrespect, General Pierce, and we've only just met. It's not your fault. But you should know there are no 'somebodies' like me."

A powerful man whose net worth Google put in the ten figures had ascended insubordination like this – still south of Thor's — and usually took it sneering and shouting. Pierce though loosened one hand from his pocket and let it bear his weight leaning on Loki's desk, Old Spice and stale antique shop air. "What else should I know about you, Loki?"

"Pierce," said Thor. He'd heard some of that exchange and as happily as you'd expect from Thor. "I'm running an aerospace company, not a dating service."

Yes, Pierce was insane, proven by the lack of remorse he demonstrated. "I'm just enjoying the good customer service you've got here, Thor."

Thor didn't help ease Pierce through his office's door and with his eyes, promised Loki a stern talking to later.

"If you're ever in the market for a job, Loki, contact me" was Pierce's heartfelt goodbye with a wrinkled wink. When Loki tried to take over showing him out, Thor waved him off.

"I don't need your flirting to help me secure business." Thor reclaimed his position from Pierce as the rightful one to cast their shadow over Loki, rewarding him with a dialing up of the heat in Loki's skin that already cancelled out the office's air conditioning, but fortunately, Loki ran cold. "Keep it short and professional. One of your master's degrees had to cover professionalism once or twice."

"If I meet my future ex-sugar daddy here while also doing my job, I don't see what your concern is. I read my contract. It did not forbid me from harmless banter."

"Well, consider it an additional clause."

He called to Thor's back, "Aren't you happy I'm wearing the neutralizer? Can you imagine how much more interesting that could've been if I realized I was an omega?"

One of these days Thor would succeed in summoning the ability to will death on Loki with his eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

The boss was not in.

On one hand, this meant less sweat-wringing hovering Thor liked torturing him with, but on the other, everything that he’d do without Thor threatening to come out of his office around noon and for his meetings that Loki did when Thor was because keyboard shortcuts were superpowers that made it look like he was hard at work writing out a novel to bore that client Thor told him to stonewall. 

The cursor tapped after the opener to a rejection to an offensively low bid by a client, and Loki snapped to fit beside it the journal that’d opened to last night’s bookmark, grabbed an earbud to tuck in to the side opposite the door.

An email from Thor popped up, subject: “Working from home.”

As promised, Thor was working from home, and Thor the Technophobe needed Loki to bring him paperwork.

So much for his uninterrupted flow.

They were working from home now, hm. Maybe Loki would try it out after he played courier to Chief Egalitarian Officer. Yes, Loki’d skimmed that article from his little interview with Good Morning America where Thor had been all about “bringing everybody up to the same level of comfort” with his renewable energy ideas. When Thor’s level of comfort teetered on the top of Malibu, Loki could see why he was so for everyone meeting him versus him lowering down to meet them.

Space exploration and being the head of a cult of personality paid beautifully.

“Could you wait here?” was his message to the chauffeur, and Loki walked the plank to the gateway to the temple of Thor.

He motioned for the doorbell, but a door disappeared and there was Thor (casual: a t-shirt that highlighted the pecs and a hint of ab and gray joggers that hung low at the crotch, deliberately low) with the same aftertaste of being pissed off drawing his eyes into slits. It was not Loki’s fault that LA traffic disobeyed the laws of space-time. Not one to waste another second of Thor’s time, Loki pulled out the folio and held it out to Thor.

Thor, however, had turned around. He intended for Loki to follow.

Loki motioned apologetically to the chauffeur who only relaxed into his seat because either way, he was getting paid. Loki was too, irrespective of Thor’s moodiness. 

Thor had DIY’d an office out on the balcony for the Malibu beachfront view that he just couldn’t miss out on. He was pulling the folio away from Loki as he lowered down into an armchair, of course, zero eye contact to express his gratitude. “While you’re up, do me a favor, and go scent my sheets. The bedroom’s up the stairs and three doors down.”

Loki’s justified silence finally got Thor to look at him.

“I haven’t been sleeping well,” Thor said, and there was the end of the eye contact.

He didn’t need further explanation. 

He turned around and found those floating stairs and scaled them and counted three doors before coming to the ones at the end he pushed open to slide inside of. Writhing around in the sheets wouldn’t require him shutting the door, but scenting was an intimate task for some, not necessarily for Loki, but Thor didn’t know that, and given what he was asking, he was in no position to judge how Loki did it.

Only Americans got into their beds with their already worn clothes on. Thor would be expecting him to maximize the surface area of his scent-carrying, however weak it was with his neutralizer on, which he did stepping out of his slacks and unbuttoning himself from his shirt. And yes, his scent neutralizer, with it on how could he expect to make a mark, particularly when breathing in a foot above the bed filled him with Thor? It’d take a lot of work to rival that.

Thor’s silken cotton sheets caressed his legs as he crawled into them.

Grasping his cock and slipping two fingers around his thigh into his cunt was efficient for getting him to sweat. It also aligned with some fantasies he may have had, but Thor wanted the sheets to smell like Loki, and Loki cumming in and a little bit on — Thor’s sheets were white, and Loki drank lots of water — them did the job.

He dressed and absolutely not coasting on the aftershocks of his orgasm, he went to leave.

Thor was there at the bottom of the stairs.

Loki did his best to maneuver around him with as little scent fallout as possible.

“Where are you going?”

He about-faced. “I have work to do, coursework.”

Thor blinked. “Do you have it with you?”

“Yes.”

Thor gestured toward the balcony, and all of the excuses Loki could’ve come up with faltered at the fact that Loki, the employee that’d gone that extra ten ounces, was really in no place to decline.

Loki claimed the loveseat across the table from Thor where an umbrella protected him from skin cancer and did his work.

## #

"The housekeeper changes my sheets every Wednesday and Sunday morning," Thor said not to his phone though it would've been an easy mistake to make with him talking toward it, not Loki. "It'll be easier for you to stop by around lunch."

"You want me to do it again," Loki said. Obviously, Thor did, but the implications of that ask were too great to not lord them a little.

"I'm sleeping better."

"Hm."

Thor hated every single copy of those genes that made Loki palatable with a burning, rouge passion, and he'd have incinerated Loki with a beam of that hate from his pinpoint pupils if he'd been able if it wouldn't leave him miserable. He tested the shatterproof glass of his office door.

It impressively did not shatter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loki will do the HR shuffle at any second now... yeah, any second... maybe a few... dozen... thousand.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HR? They don't know ha!

“Pass along the major messages to Bruce, and only if it’s the end of the world call me,” said Thor. 

“Have fun, and tell your mom I said happy birthday though with the revolving door you keep of assistants, I doubt she’ll care.” 

“I’ll tell her.” Thor messed with the metal chunks of his luxury watch’s band. “Don’t do anything you wouldn’t do if I were here.”

“Yes, sir.”

The first item on Loki’s agenda was then of course helping himself into Thor’s office upon arrival the next morning, not knocking like he would’ve if Thor had been there. For his courage, a lamb soft blanket wrapped itself around his shoulders on a mild day while the dulce de leche to die for melted into the microscopic labyrinth between his taste buds. 

No contentment wound through his intangible being or calendar reminded him it was Saturday morning, but Loki would take it.

Thor’s Day Home had prepared Loki for the sheer scope of fucking around one could do without the pressure of two water-below-the-frozen-ice-he’d-like-to-trap-Loki-in blue eyes. What could he have done that the “hello, Mr. Odinson is currently unavailable, but leave your message and he will attend to you when time allows” voicemail greeting couldn’t? The consensus of the messages from VIPs Loki transcribes in the event the voicemail self-destructed was “never mind, I’ll call back later, your highness. Don’t let little old me ruin your vacation.”

Trust Loki that only Thor could’ve ruined Thor’s vacation. For all of the trauma and suffering Loki endured, one of them had better have been enjoying it.

As Thor had forgotten unsurprisingly, the entire fucking point Loki had filled in the application in the first place hadn’t been to sit around for which Thor would’ve had to have been paying him far more than he was. He could get some R&R (rest and research, not to be confused with rest and relaxation), tried it, locked up Thor’s office to go to his graduate seminar and took detours into an underused classroom to consume its white boards with proofs and into the stacks to numb his fingertips flipping pages of textbooks before he, not one to blow his load in a few strokes, crawled back to home base.

During mindless and fruitless scrolling through journals, he discovered the various angles that Thor desk’s chair could safely tilt in and where to place to his hands on the desk to maximize its spin. That last Thursday, he wrote a resignation letter and backspaced it all.

If Loki were going to be fucked, he preferred to get an orgasm out of it.

He rubbed his pulse points free of neutralizer and wallowed in a manufactured hot spot off Santa Monica beach like a Normal 20-something. The alpha with parodically blond surfer hair donated a decently-sized cock for Loki to ride on in sheets that probably hadn’t been changed in a year and definitely wouldn’t be changed for another for him to commemorate the best sex he’d ever have.

“Call me sometime, babe,” he laughably told Loki. Utility sex never was worth a call.

The Id on his shoulder had shut up about sneaking an orgasm at Thor’s desk which left him the mental space to drink Thor’s top-shelf rum to the original press The Clash vinyls on his cloud-stuffed couch.

It wasn’t the lack of Thor’s supervision, but the institution of Thor, the regiment of regular office work and banal requests with imaginary threats of violence or stern talkings to. He counted on the challenge of it, challenge born purely of novelty, to be hands on his shoulders pushing him forward in his eternal race against Boredom, but no, he’d been duped.

Thus him letting Saturday night come to him having Cheerios to _Futurama_ reruns.

His phone rattled across his coffee table.

You could’ve taken a wild guess who it was.

Loki thoroughly chewed his mouthful of Cheerios before he thought about answering it.

“Where are you, and why aren’t you here?” asked a windy Thor.

“I didn’t know I needed to be.”

“I figured you were smart enough that it didn’t need to be said. I’m going to be home in 30 minutes. I expect you to be there.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t hear you. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

Loki was likely getting fired, but it’d be a firing to remember. He finished the rest of his Cheerios.

#

The alert on his phone stating “Scent Thor’s Sheets” nudged him to Thor’s front door at noon.

“Surprised you showed up,” said Thor somewhere above the gladiator chest plate cast in skin-textured gold. These chests did come on other places than Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 80s.

Loki played off the leering by asking in his most astonished voice, “Did you get a tan?”

The display of garden variety shallowness from GMO Loki disarmed Thor to stop seething in his doorway. His trapezius muscles flashed dimples at Loki, dimples, as they were in abundance on Thor’s back, at the top and lounging at the bottom above the waistband of track pants living dangerously low on his ass. “Did you enjoy your time off?” 

“What time off?” Loki asked.

The time away had given Thor a sense of humor. “Mother thanks you for the birthday wish.”

Thor who relegated all information short of gymming and dates he must’ve occasionally treated supermodels and actresses to his calendar had remembered and then decided to pass on Loki’s birthday wish to his mother.

“Oh. I’m happy to hear that.” His hands placed his jacket on the shoulder of a chair automatically. “So, just the sheets then?”

Thor dipped his head in mocking acknowledgment. “Just the sheets.”

Loki laid in them after he came for a while, luxuriating.

“Wait,” Thor said at the bottom of the stairs.

“I can’t—“

The force around his upper arm stopped him. There was no argument between Loki’s momentum and it, Thor’s space-heater of a hand. Loki was waiting.

“Here.” Thor handed him a boutique bag with the hand not cuffing Loki’s arm. “See you tomorrow.”

Despite the conceit of indifference, Thor would’ve enjoyed watching the delighted reaction he just knew Loki would’ve had seeing the gift. Therefore, Loki made sure he saw it in the car when Thor wasn’t around to.

A silk kimono unfurled from the puddle of black. There wasn’t a notecard, no scrap torn off with Thor’s blocky engineer handwriting. “Take this,” the gesture was supposed to say. “Don’t read into it.”

Thor should’ve elected for raw steel wool if he didn't want Loki's body reading into the sensual slide of the kimono over the tops of his thighs, the catch of it on his cock, like well-licked lips. Loki was a long-time fan of ribbons as a teasing tool. Showing it off in the mirrored doors on his closet in a full circle rubbed it in all the right places, all of the places really for how generous the kimono’s reach was, skidding the middle of his calves and shins. It left so much to the imagination when he shut it that he couldn’t help but crack it open to see his hard cock waiting for its turn, the cute divot from sternum to navel for lost tongues to find their way down home.

He’d have been the boy-toy moping in the doorway of a lavish Palm Springs ode to the 70s, a face for those large hands of Thor’s to rest after a hard day of wringing before they drifted on the border of skin and silk, and Thor would’ve knelt down and sucked him sloppily, finger-fucking him in tandem — and he’d put a leg over his shoulder to hit that spot deep. Loki knew it — and made him cum so hard that the silk would’ve been too much on his skin.

Loki did that himself. Thor wouldn’t have had any issues.

#

"I would've worn your gift, but I didn't think it would be work appropriate. Unless you declare an adult pajama day."

Thor didn’t give Loki the usual faintly amused look because he couldn’t, not if he didn’t want to share how the flashback to the quality time he spent with his hand in Loki and the kimono’s honor flustered him. He had the fortitude to force a bite-sized chuckle. "What meetings do I have today?" 

He humored Thor’s fancy for the un-glory days of secretarial work where they clacked behind the broad shoulders of their bosses enabling the staggering amount of illiteracy Loki had unearthed in the upper echelons of Corporate Land. Thor could read and write but preferred to give his hands and eyes time off to sit in his pockets while he sky-gazed to Loki’s debrief.

Thor never interrupted his morning reacclimating with uninterrupted human contact as a concept to ask for coffee, one already in his hand, or to ask Loki to pick up the dry cleaning keeping his rotation of simple but perfectly tailored suits fresh, and Loki supposed he should’ve been grateful for that if Thor hadn’t because he knew Loki would’ve quit — coffee and dry cleaning was not a novelty and not a challenge — and his re-up of aromatic mood stabilizer would’ve gone with him.

It was long overdue that his status confer him some tangible benefits. Masturbating in Thor’s bed twice a week would’ve been a cost if it weren’t a fuel source for him masturbating later in his own bed. It added body to the gimmes — among the many, Thor’s titanium ass tempting Loki to grab a handful of it in his slacks and likely get five teeth decked out of his mouth because fucking Loki was eating an entire triple chocolate fudge cake in one sitting; a brilliant idea to salivate over but not later taking shots of Pepto Bismol with an asteroid in your stomach or paying out millions of dollars in hush money in a sexual harassment lawsuit. 

Loki would really have liked to leave this job with a glittering recommendation from Tech Messiah at worst, so though he would’ve been chugging down Pepto with a smirk, he was marginally less okay with never having sex with Thor Odinson now than he’d been a year ago only having met the man in YouTube clips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Might freak around and end up posting too many chapters too soon and end up lapping myself lmao.


	5. Chapter 5

Tony Stark — yes, of the fastest car in the world Stark Mark VI name — shouted over a Transformers gangbang about a dream he’d had last night that involved “Kris Kristofferson” — a Google search during the rant explained what Stark didn’t; snooze rock musician — and there were talking Zebras, but long story short, Thor needed to get to New York in the next 12-18 hours by Loki’s estimate or Thor’s dreams of a road powered by Leiptr batteries was dead because Tony Stark hated polar bears and penguins again.

He’d have relayed the conversation to Thor after it went from entertaining to grating with Stark’s non sequiturs, but Thor was hosting the Governor of California and crew in Conference Room C down the hall.

An expression that would’ve won him the Secretary University 1960 pageant moved the meat shields aside.

Thor was at his rightful place above the room at the head of the table in front of line graphs. “—have there been?” he was asking presumably the governor with a “Can you believe this guy?” smile. Thor expressly chose to look at Loki because Loki was invisible moving around the outer perimeter of the room to wait to steal Thor from all the post-meeting schmoozers. And further in Loki’s defense, he probably should’ve gone up and interrupted given the circumstances, yet did he? Loki — due to Thor’s choice to look at him had ruined Thor’s train of thought because he changed course, genuine now when he said, “You’ll do more for your state than they did combined.”

That tickled the governor.

The meeting came to a close but not before Thor said his goodbyes and “thank you”s. He had a pressing concern.

Look at Thor picking up cues.

Loki met him in the hall. “Tony Stark is sacrificing the electric car dream to build a ‘gas guzzling glutton that cracks the 300-mph barrier.’”

Thor always held open doors for Loki. That wasn’t merciful overlord-like at all. “He’s getting married soon. He probably finally set a date, and now, he’s having a crisis.”

“You don’t want me to have the jet prepared?”

Thor knew Loki had been dying to say that at some point in his life. “I’ll call him back first. Don’t get him on the line yet. I need a moment to breathe.”

“He asked if he’d called a phone sex hotline.”

Thor shook his head. “I was about to ask that man if he wanted to be the one with their name attached to saving the planet or if I’d have to fund another puppet because he had the nerve to be skeptical.”

“I can’t say I wouldn’t have had to stop myself from clapping, but I could see how that would’ve been bad.”

“I would’ve if you hadn’t come in.” Thor wasn’t speaking to just Loki but to the ghosts of ego past and future he was facing.

“Tony Stark can have all the credit for that.”

Yeah, Thor hadn’t heard any of that. He talked Tony Stark a few steps back from the ledge but conceded to Loki over the Greek salad he’d said “sure” to that he’d need to pay Tony a visit sometime soon to “reassure” him. Loki’s perceptiveness impressed Thor so greatly that Loki got another promotion — from emails and phone calls to note-taking during meetings too.

Thor had a person that did that as their only job, and for someone that’d been skeptical of Loki as a secretary because of his lack of experience, leaving it to Loki’s judgment what was worthy of documenting wasn’t consistent. But Loki was given a reserved seat in conference rooms that people worked their entire lives and never even had the chance to walk by.

And he wasn’t complaining about a front-row seat to the corporate dom/sub relationship between Thor and the empty suits.

Besides the first glance over Loki’s notes and the “looks good,” Thor didn’t take the open opportunity to nitpick Loki like he’d been aching to for a while back there. Loki sent Thor a copy of his notes, but since Thor never commented on the “Mr. Odinson aims his sizable bulge at the CFO of IBM,” it was safe to assume Thor wasn’t reading Loki’s notes at all. 

For when Thor got around to it, Loki took notes of how Thor’s suit fit while he strolled and gestured if Thor was curious about the extent of his ass’ greatness.

#

You knew you were a billionaire when those weekly boxing sessions blocked off on Friday mornings that you disappeared off to were with a _Sports Illustrated_ coverboy.

“You must be good,” said Loki to Thor’s sparring partner, and the concussions hadn’t knocked all of his humor out for him to not laugh around his mouth piece.

What was Thor’s excuse?

Thor relinquished the extra what it felt like Loki’s worth of height the ring added, slipping between the ropes, skin a sweaty gold wrapping on his bulging muscles. He returned to his usual level of being bigger than Loki.

The difference in size between Thor’s hands with and without the gloves had to be negligible. Thor’s hair frizzed when he removed the headgear. Loki would’ve smoothed it if Thor wouldn’t have broken his fingers off.

“Any interesting messages?” asked Thor.

Other than the ones Thor’s back muscles were signing Loki, nothing that Loki hadn’t taken care of with the usual corporate, canned responses.

“Why wait to ask me to come meet you only now?” Loki asked Thor who was sanctifying a towel with sweat. “I would’ve been glad to sit ringside and cheer you on.”

Thor’s stare was having difficulty believing that. Fresh towel around his neck, he had eyes for the origin of the steam wafting around the corner. “You’d be disappointed if you wanted to see my ass get kicked.”

“You care about not disappointing me? And they say bosses don’t care,” he said to Back Dimples.

“Wearin’ a lotta clothes for the locker room, princess,” said average dick mismatched with the smirk, a foot soldier of the army of hypermasculinity.

His fellow dickheads were, taking a glance around, too looking at Loki like he was the odd one out, and it wasn’t only because of Loki’s intact suit, let’s be honest. It never was because of Loki’s X or Loki’s Y. It was because of Loki that the look-at-me orange Mohawk sucked his teeth at Loki and decided to fix those beady little eyes on Loki, to put his not clothed enough body as close as the bench would let him.

“Interesting hair,” said Loki. “Must require a lot of maintenance.”

“Yours too. All pretty and glossy. All these guys don’t think you could stand a ring a day in your life, but you ask me, bet I could break you in.”

“Thank you for the offer, but I already have a trainer queued. You might know him. About this tall, this wide, luscious, golden blond hair, sparkling blue eyes?”

“Oh.” Between the two of them, that and the wide eyes would’ve had someone thinking he hadn’t gotten in exponentially more fist fights than Loki. “Yeah, Thor, I — I know ‘em. Cool guy. Real cool.”

“The coolest. I’m sorry. I didn’t get your name.”

Suddenly, he had to get going, not back when he’d decided to try to pick on the pencil-pusher. That wasn’t transparent at all. Neither was the cautious shift in the interest on him after the game of telephone finished.

Thor, towel teasing them all around his hips, noted the shifty glances and asked, “What did I miss?”

“Nothing interesting,” Loki replied as he saved himself from Pandora’s cock and turned his back to reread emails.

“What was ‘nothing’?”

“Nothing that you or I don’t already know.” Quoting the _New York Times_ , he said, “’Equal parts respected and healthily feared.’”

Thor’s zipper crunch okayed Loki turning around. It was only the chest to deal with. Doable. “Is that me or you?”

“Why not both?”

Loki got a picture with Thor’s boxing buddy/part-time world champion to smear in his little brothers’ faces and the invite Thor was withholding to come watch the next time.

“He’s a little too busy for that,” lied Thor as Loki replied, “Maybe.”

Loki waved goodbye to the Rooster and company who, would you believe it, waved back. If only Thor had known what role he played in that he’d have turned that vague frown upside down.

#

He was hard at work reviewing a submission to a CompSci journal he was subscribed to and seamlessly switched his active window to the rambling email from some head of design at Thor’s emergence from his office, sleeves shucked to his elbows for the shimmer of arm hair as he passed through rogue beams of sunlight Loki tried to keep at a minimum out here with the blinds. 

A business card from the looks of it pinched between Thor’s peace-signing fingers and was being thrust at Loki. “Go get yourself fitted for a tux,” Thor was saying. “I need a date for a dinner Saturday night.”

The tailor had a suffix in his name. That was how Loki knew it was good — besides the possibility that they were responsible for Thor’s trousers continuously suggesting Loki’s fantasies were not exaggerating.

As for Saturday night, that was a dinner for the International Innovation Council.

“Isn’t it in poor taste to bring your secretary as your date?”

“So, you’re a secretary now.” Thor did listen to what Loki said. “But no. You look good in a tux, and if anyone thought about asking, they’d regret hearing that my secretary has more education than their whole boards do.”

“How do you know I look good in a tux?”

“You look good in anything,” said Thor very matter-of-factly. “Take the rest of the day. And charge it to my card.” His card was the metallic silver one he placed on Loki’s keyboard. “Tell me how it goes.”

_“You’ll see how well it went.”_

Loki was sample size for men, a little-known power of his, one that Thor’s trusted tailor and the superhero or super-villain depending on how sexually frustrated Loki looked at it that took care of Thor’s suits went breathless over. If Thor hadn’t expressly told him to take the rest of the day, he would’ve trying on tux after tux after tux.

Thor had said to get fitted for a tux, but given how many Loki was fitted for and that it was being charged to Thor’s card, not leaving with an arm full of garment bags would’ve been a waste.

Thor mentioned nothing about it but “be ready at 5:00.”

A little bit after that, Loki snuck from his apartment into a svelte silver Jag from the 60s a classic black tux eagerly kept Thor company in. Thor could’ve showed off his jaw muscle all he wanted looking like that.

“I had to check that the stove was off,” Loki explained before he was pushing back against his seat by Thor’s foot on the throttle.

“I like to be on time.”

“You’re a billionaire. Whenever you come is on time.”

Thor might not have subscribed to that, but he sure did to traffic laws being pay-to-play. Dying t-boned in an intersection with Thor would’ve suited Loki’s obituary better than “stabbed by a vindictive colleague.”

Would you look at that? They still made it on time, non-billionaire time. Thor tossed his keys over the lid of the car and Loki’s shoulder to the valet, but despite the clear rush he was in, stopped to metaphorically hitch Loki on his wagon. He openly let his eyes sweep over Loki. Loki caught the beginnings of the smirk when Thor turned away. “Told you.”

He didn’t need to ask Thor’s back what because the memory of Thor repeated, “You look good in a tux.” He did, but Thor did too. To not get swallowed in the shadow of Thor, it’d take the combined effort of the subtle gothic Damask in equally gothic green on his jacket, daring but not obnoxious about it like the green velour might’ve been, and Loki not shrinking himself any more than Thor being beside him already did.

If the name “International Innovation Council” wasn’t a tip-off, Loki had been shoved onto the sidelines of a human centipede. Thor headed it, the reformed nerds bowing in half to kiss the ring, but they all wanted their mouth full of shit with less digested nutrients and were hopelessly desperate to get as close to Thor’s ass as possible. Thor was selectively perceptive and perceived it with a pitying smile, entertaining this CEO and that inventor, but only after introducing Loki as “Dr. Loki Laufeyson, my right arm.”

Loki was what none of their money could’ve bought, and Thor rubbed their faces in it. Well played.

Being paraded around and admired wasn’t quo for Thor’s quid, so after dinner, Loki excused himself to the bathroom, and trusting Thor’d migrated elsewhere in the room to get away from the buzzards, he reintroduced himself to the CEO of Google. Chaos Theory was an emerging sub-discipline in computing, and if Loki could’ve landed himself a cushy job in Fortune 100 management now, Loki could make each executive and engineer he spoke to feel like they were the most important person in the world.

That sort of sweet-talking to the ego eased down the defenses and discarded the professionalism Thor accused Loki of not having, but here were the world’s innovators accidentally disclosing secrets, personal, professional, possibly trade in one case, with euphemisms and neck scratches and wayward looks. If they weren’t forthcoming with the offers when the time came, well, Loki had means to get them if necessary.

He smelled Thor before he felt him, his hand a big fan of Loki’s upper arm. He had been headed toward the bar anyway, but now Thor had saved him a few calories of energy by dragging him there.

Thor released him, but his hand didn’t go far onto the bar-top. “I see you’ve made yourself lots of new friends.”

“I could crash the share price of a third of the Fortune 100 after what they shared. Did you know that the CTO of Boeing sent some sort of spy to work in SpaceA’s accounting department?”

“Really?”

“Lockheed is scared shitless you personally are going to venture in other sorts of guns”—in case the reference wasn’t obvious, a look down to Thor’s bicep—“and arms. I said you were in ‘many developing tech sectors’ as your fanzine _Wired_ makes sure we all know, and it couldn’t get out fast enough.”

“You just met these people.”

“And how quickly they forgot that. People don’t realize how lucky they are that I only want theories in kids’ textbooks named after me instead of to take over the world.”

Thor was searching Loki’s face for the punchline that unfortunately for the state of the corporate world was not coming. That reminder of the sorry state of other people ruined Thor’s appetite for having his ass polished with prestigious lips, and he declared with the clink of his empty glass on the bar top, “Let’s go.”

Kill Loki. He violated arbitrary social decorum that the driver chose the music and helped himself to the duty. Thor might've been a tad acetic, but Smashing Pumpkins was an improvement over horns blaring.

He balanced the scales by pausing with his door on the handle outside his apartment to ask, "Do you need to use the bathroom before the drive home? I know the hour and a half is more like 50 for you, but after 20 in bladder time—"

The dome light lit up not by the command of Loki pulling the handle.

He couldn’t recall Thor ever following him. Thor would walk in the same direction a step behind, but he’d never followed Loki like this. Look at Loki being followed by arguably the most powerful man in the world. And all those teachers and professors had said that Loki was going nowhere with an attitude like this.

“Welcome. Don’t check the hallway closet. That’s where I keep the bodies,” he said to no one because Thor, as Loki had faced the shoe rack and stepped out of his, had showed himself in. If Thor could do that, he could figure out where the bathroom was his own then too.

The streak of light under the en suite door stopped him midway through getting his tuxedo jacket off.

“There’s a bathroom before the bedroom,” Loki called to Thor.

The flushing toilet spoke on Thor’s behalf.

It was illegally sarcastic, that smile he flashed Loki coming out. As he couldn’t be trusted on his own, Loki showed him the way out. “That shampoo and conditioner is great. I use it.”

“Thank you for the reassurance that the world isn’t in the right hands tonight,” Loki said.

“But it’s in my hands,” Thor said. “Have a car come by to pick you up, so you’ll catch the flight to Beijing on time Monday.”

Loki was going to Beijing Monday. That was good to know. “Will do.”

“Goodnight, Loki.”

“You too, Mr. Odinson.”

That blew some air out of Thor’s nose.

Thor Odinson had been in Loki’s bedroom. That was a line to break the ice with Sigyn when he got around to talking to her like he did every three-six months.

For the suffering he endured, Loki deserved a face mask. He was washing his hands to do that, but his trash can was a lot fuller in his periphery than it’d been when he left earlier.

The bottles of _Dove Scent Free Body Scrub_ and _Paul Mitchell Scent Reduction Rinse_ had found their way into it, on top of the equally empty — emptied _Dior Homme_ _Invisibility Cloak Mist_ decanter and the brutalized _La Mer_ _Moisturizing Soft Cream_ that’d clearly been an innocent bystander in Thor’s massacre.

He rose with a tirade for the phone brewing. Some hands the world was in if they felt the right to do this.

Something black was wedged in the corner of the mirror, no doubt another gift from Thor. It was a credit card, metal like the corporate one, but said “Loki Laufeyson.”

Limitless wasn’t 500,000 dollars, but Loki was struggling to find it in himself to complain.

_“You could’ve asked,”_ he told Thor.

_“I did.”_

The loose screws rattling around inside Loki’s head let Thor off.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonne année! My resolution: get a beta reader to help me nurse one of my many plot bunnies to adulthood, so they may run free -- free!

Thor used the name "Thomas Edison" to check into hotels. Nothing short of a suit of Medieval armor would've stopped his hair and height from being a golden smoke signal for the stewards and the other hotel guests to gawk and snipe new highlights from the social media timelines. It wasn’t every day that you saw 24 Hour News’ Messiah. 

A man like “Thomas Edison” had to have stumbled upon _sj_ _älvdistans_ as the Swedes said, jagged translation: self-distance, in his journey to the top of the world. It was a given. Either your cuntiness repelled the gatekeepers to the Fortune 50 or you embraced how a life with jets like luxury apartments and triplexes teetering on the tip of the hundred floor skyscraper with the pool plunging off the edge was surreal and had easy fun sometime.

Thor’s sarcasm had a blind-spot for Loki, but that blind-spot confined Loki to the hotel while Thor had breakfast with representatives from the CSA. “Be on stand-by,” said Thor as he snapped his simple titanium cufflinks secure, and he tugged the sleeves of the red sweater subbing in for a jacket down. As if Loki needed the incentive of witnessing the fine motor movements coax out Thor’s hand tendons to stay.

An accurate description of Loki’s job would’ve been “checks, responds to, and forwards (and appropriately deletes) email.” There was a healthy mix of “tells callers that they’ll get a reply eventually; highlight important parts of paperwork, and flag where signatures are,” but Loki was a quite frankly overpaid email-minder. Thor’s emails were thousands daily and from presidents and prime ministers and CEOs and CTOs, of course, but there was a legion of people in the replies of Thor’s own self-run, grammatically chaotic mess of a Twitter that would’ve done that for free with much more enthusiasm.

Also, Loki’d written a little script that sifted through the email pile for the VIPs and terms that spelled “serious business worth paying attention to.” He dipped into the fully stocked bar to supply an extra buzz to cutting apart an unusually shitty article submitted to a chemistry journal with his feet kicked up and smothered himself in the sauna shower attached to Thor’s master palace.

To scent or not to scent was the question facing him, drying his hair in stare-off with the bed for a football team Thor’d be sleeping in. 

One of the doors clicked open before he could decide.

Loki’d never been in less than a long-sleeved shirt and pants in front of Thor. The kimono, even tied shut, was less than that but no reason for Loki to act caught. “I was about to scent your sheets.”

“After you scented my shower.”

“If you don’t need me to scent your sheets—“

“I didn’t say that.” The sweater pulling over Thor’s head turned his hair into a static-y mess. In his starched white shirt, he gestured it toward the bed. “Be my guest.”

Loki gave Thor time to do whatever it was he needed by taking his time placing his wet towel in the discards in the bathroom. He didn’t pull the trigger on his kimono sash however. 

The windows felt a mile away, but they were in the room, and Thor was stood by them checking his phone. That scratched off “jerking off” as the vector to get that sweat flowing. Unless it didn’t.

Thor answered a call in English with “Coulson” the Department of Defense crony whose calls with Thor went on for years — an hour usually but in Thor time it might as well have been. He barely would’ve noticed Loki sliding into the sheets with the kimono on and half lying on his side. With his angle in Loki’s periphery, he couldn’t have seen the hand the tilt of Loki’s body hid open the kimono up and go in to assure his cock that it was okay to get harder.

It didn’t take much. For the erection or the orgasm that he about bit through his bottom lip to keep quiet, milking the cum out of himself into his palm. Sparkling butterflies fluttered around the backs of his eyelids.

“If,” said Thor voice, not by the window, no, but on the other side of the bed, “you’re going to take a nap, scent this side first. I need to outrun jet lag myself.” 

“Um.” He stiffly sat up and with his handful of cum, got onto his knees and covertly seeded the sheets with it through the spaces in his knuckles, smearing it in with his trailing hand and wrist. “This one,” Thor told him, fluffing one of the many pillows, and Loki, very casually, opened his palm to wipe it dry and leaned down to rub the glands under the corner of his jaw onto the pillow.

There was that profoundly present stare from Thor that reminded Loki Schrodinger’s erection was dangling free in his lower periphery because his kimono hung open, which was a problem because he was scenting his boss’ sheets. Before Loki’s cock remembered how it loved high risk, Loki carefully extricated himself from the bed, back to Thor. He gave himself buffer to not brush his shoulder with Thor’s arm but what did that matter to Thor’s scent and body heat?

He tied his sash undoubtedly with sex hair and sex flush. “I trust I’ll be compensated well for my performance, Mr. Odinson.” If he didn’t stop the awkwardness, Thor wouldn’t. “Am I un-grounded or do I need to stay close?”

“I want you around until dinner.” Thor sitting meant Loki doing diplomat hands over his indecisive cock. “Then, go and get yourself a meal wherever you want. Be back before midnight. I need to go over notes for the meeting tomorrow.”

“Do you want me to wake you up at any specific time?”

“Wake me up when you do.”

Loki didn’t need to sleep, but he gave Thor four hours, four hours that Thor gave him a questionable look and asked, “Trouble sleeping?” over. He told Thor no, but Loki found a strand of blond hair on his pillow when he went to pull back his duvet after a sprint through the meeting agenda with Thor.

The trouble he encountered with his sheets smelling like a chocolate-frosted orgasm was the getting to sleep part though when he did — he was too well-rested to commit to the annoyance at Thor shackling him with translation duties when there was another certified translator (“She’s not Norwegian,” like again, that explained everything.)

#

“And you must be the next sexual harassment settlement.” After Brunnhilde, Vice-President of Aerospace and Chairwoman of Making Mellow Scandinavian Chic into Battle Gear, fist-bumped Thor and called him “Malibu Barbie,” that was confirmation that she was, by far, humanity’s best hope at SpaceA.

Thor laughed, not finding that funny at all. “He prefers Loki.”

“I prefer whatever you prefer,” Loki corrected.

The corner of Thor’s straining, no-teeth smile got to Loki before he turned around to face forward in the elevator.

“Trying to kiss up to me.” See in the scraps of silver in the elevator, the gold ring on Brunnhilde’s hand that had been collective disappointment of thousands of boys and girls that’d been in Loki’s place. “This one’s wise. Are you sure he didn’t take a wrong turn on his way to to Banner’s office?”

“Speaking of Bruce.” Thor directed her onto more important topics with bull-like finesse — none. The glimpses of the creamy, sweet filling under Thor’s golden crust from his phone calls with his mother before Thor shut his office door were to Thor fanboying over every syllable out of Brunnhilde’s mouth what Mandarin oranges were to sweet ones. Seriously, in the meeting notes, Loki appended an “excitedly” tag for direct quotes from Thor.

Best of all was Brunnhilde’s total disregard for bright anime eyes Thor had for her. Not that Loki wasn’t cool already, but oh, he aspired to be the level of cool where Thor deferring to him in a board of directors meeting didn’t have him speechless or even thanking Thor but instead replying, “Always knew you had a brain somewhere in there, TO.”

Loki’s hero.

One of the mummies in a 50s cut suit lured Thor in with praise, freeing Brunnhilde for Loki, as Thor’s proxy, to offer his services — if she needed them. He was quite clear that he knew she was more than capable and that it did have him drooling a bit.

“Ooh. Find me a big, juicy piece of meat for lunch. You can do that. Or are you one of those anti-meat people?”

“No—”

“It’d be cool if you were. My wife is. Vegan for four years now. She loves a little piglet. How couldn’t she when she’s with me? She knows how I like to roll around in the dirt.”

“I bet she does,” said the suicidal part of him, but his self-preservation wasn’t far behind saying, “being that she’s your wife and no one as happy as you are is in a relationship with someone that doesn’t fully accept them.”

“That smooth talking must do a number on Thor.”

“It would if he didn’t have that hearing problem around me.”

“He has the attention span of a Golden Retriever. You have to follow triple s: smell good, shiny, or sexy, ideally all three, and you’ve got yourself a captive audience.” She was cocking her chin at the escapee Thor. “Don’t we, Air Bud?”

Nothing Thor’s fave Brunnhilde could say would break his relief. “You’ve made that joke before. About the dog movie.”

“You forgot he plays basketball. It’s what really makes the joke good.”

“Eh.”

“Mhm.”

“I’ll have your big, juicy piece of meat delivered to Thor’s office,” Loki said. “If that’s alright.”

Knowing Loki, the line between Thor’s eyebrows expected an inside joke he was missing.

“Brilliant.” Brunnhilde smacked Thor on the arm. “I’m going to go find that little rascal Banner and give him a stern talking to about sending his secretary as a stand-in to meetings and how I’m going to steal the idea any quarter now.” She directed a finger at Loki. “Three S’s.”

“Three S’s?” Thor asked.

“Assistant advice.” Phone in hand, he asked Thor if he’d also like a big, juicy piece of meat, and after squinting at Loki for an absurd amount of time, Thor reluctantly replied sure.

Thor stared at the steaks popping the takeaway lid unveiled like they were going to sprout his dreaded wires.

“Is that not the meat you wanted?”

Thor top-eyed — the side-eye but from underneath the upper eyelid, a mastered skill of Thor’s — Loki. “I would’ve preferred something a little leaner, paler, but it’s fine.”

“Chicken. Right,” said Loki. He nodded in oblivious understanding, and the “Is that steak I smell?” was him turning his head around to incline it to Brunnhilde for the added insult to Thor’s injury.

What could Loki say? He had a thing for power suits and dismissal of Thor. 

#

“You’re late,” said the early one Thor. On top of being wrong, he was in Loki’s chair at Loki’s desk.

“I think your watch is in Norwegian time.”

“Mm. It’s not.” With his “sure, Loki” smile in name only, Thor removed himself from Loki’s chair, bringing up with him the nondescript boutique bag that’d been parked on Loki’s keyboard by Thor. “I got you something.”

That did not sound suspicious at all, especially not with Thor insisting on sticking around to see Loki’s reaction. Not one to be rushed, Loki settled himself before thinking of the what the hell waiting for him inside Thor’s surprise present. Because the weight in it said it was not another robe.

Between the bulge in his periphery trying to trick Loki into making direct eye contact for a “gotcha!”-five finger facial reconstruction-combination and the grenade sat on his lap, he chose the inside of the bag.

The minimalist cologne bottle contained clear behind its boldface, no-nonsense label of “TO.”

Loki lifted its cap toward his nose.

His artificial post-coital glow intensified like it did when he first entered the office and like that first breath he’d taken in Thor’s aura a blink ago.

  1. Rocket scientists sure weren’t creative, were they?



Loki made his eyebrows let Thor know he knew. 

“That’s my scent.” Pride wasn’t the prevailing emotion Thor should’ve been feeling. “I figured, you know, I’ve been sleeping well with what you do with the sheets, and I saw”—read: assumed—“you did when I did yours. So, it would do you some good to have my scent.”

“How did they isolate your scent?” The fragrance was translucent like it wouldn’t have been if they’d gone Loki’s route.

“Sweat. Did a hundred quick push-ups in the shop.” In, what, a minute? “Always gets the juices flowing.”

Loki nodded slowly like Thor hadn’t airdropped him all the porn Loki’d need till the blood stopped pumping to his cock. “Well. I look forward to trying it out.”

“Why not now?” came loudly and quickly. “You should put it on now. It’s not like you have to worry about waste. There’s more where it came from.”

Had Thor ever been this engaged with Loki?

“I’ll dab it at my pulse points. Wouldn’t want it to be overpowering.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

A squirt of Sex by Thor onto his fingertips and dabbed behind the ears, on his wrists, for fun, in the bowl of his collar bone. Tom Ford who? Loki might as well have washed and moisturized with fragrance-free everything, and then, glazed himself like a gaping donut under the spurting shadow of the boogeyman in Thor’s pants.

He couldn’t make eye contact with Thor, not when his body was waiting on the right fucking sneeze to cum. “Is that it?” 

“For now.” Thor distanced Loki from himself, out of focus behind Loki’s awakening desktop. “Schedule in five.”

“As always.”

Five minutes, yeah, fifty seconds was all of the time Loki’s cock needed with his hand with the other wrist feeding euphoria direct into his nose.

Loki could adjust to living in a post-orgasmic daze indefinitely. 

#

For Thor’s 12:00 lunch meeting with SpaceA General Counsel, in walked a Hollywood studio’s male-gaze-drenched idea of a lawyer for a billion-dollar corporation.

If not for the head shot that turned out not to be a case of bribing the photographer, Loki would’ve asked Darcy Lewis when she and Thor had started dating. But who was to say they hadn’t when all of _those_ said otherwise?

“Darcy Lewis, is it?” said Loki with the least lecherous smile she’d had to see all day.

“Yep. And you’re the new assistant,” Darcy’s eyebrows slowly said. “L…”

“-oki, yes.”

“Right. I had that.”

“I’m sure you did. Thor’s in a phone call, but he’ll be with you soon.”

“No rush. More time for me to get to know you.”

“The next sexual harassment settlement?”

Darcy guffawed. “Wow. Um, yeah. I feel like I should say yes for the sole fact that you said that? But also, for legal protection of the company, which is kinda of, actually my job, I shouldn’t say anything?”

“Decisions, decisions.”

“Alright. I decide that you come park yourself here.” Darcy gestured to the couch across from the armchair that she was about to sink into. “And I will sit here, and you can tell me about all the cool things The Big Guy has had you up to.”

“The Big Guy? Someone besides Dr. B doesn’t call him Mr. Odinson?”

“Well, me and him, we’re kind of like way back. Like six years back, but I was a second year associate at Random Biglaw Firm, and he came in looking for new counsel after firing his, and the old stuffy guys weren’t fitting the bill, but guess who was getting in the elevator he was on with a SpaceA mug? Anyway, we’re past all those boring titles that just reinforce weird, arbitrary hierarchies partially governed by forever outdated patriarchal standards. Thor likes Thor. I like Darcy. It all works out.”

“So, your area is finding out what illegal things he needs to legally bribe someone to make legal, right?”

“I at least try to talk him into legal alternatives. That’s not always successful — only like 30% of the time, but the fine fund has been operating on a surplus since I arrived, so mic drop.” Darcy also dropped an invisible mic on the floor.

It was safe to say Thor’d never considered more than the hugs Darcy definitely plied him with.

“I’m glad to be on your team then,” Loki replied.

The gasp should’ve spider-webbed the glass separating office from hallway, but Darcy had her head thrown back to direct the last of it at the ceiling. She followed up with a snicker she held her hand to her chest for.

Thor had been lured out by what must’ve been the Darcy Lewis alarm, nonchalantly adjusting his red jacket that would’ve been a daring choice on any shoulders but those. 

“Okay,” she said, wagging her finger. “Now I get the ‘sexual harassment’ reference. Bad.” This she directed at Thor as she stood. “But okay, seriously. I can’t say that if I didn’t have that voice saying those words to me day-in and day-out that I wouldn’t have to go chant the non-fraternization policy for a few hours. I get it. But it’s not the 50s where you can have your midday snack with a side of your secretary, mister.”

“What?” Thor asked.

“How do tacos sound to you?” Darcy answered. “It’s been too long since I’ve seen you eaten 15 of those in five minutes. Loki, let’s have food sometime before you sue the company, okay? Okay.”

“Try not to choke on any tacos,” Loki said.

Of course, upon return, Thor set him down a take-out bag of two tacos he’d saved for Loki to not choke on too.

“By the way, the sexual harassment joke isn’t funny,” said Thor. “I would’ve laughed at it when Brunnhilde said it if it were.”

Infusing his cells with the sweet chorus of guacamole and sour cream with an inhale, Loki paused, taco in hand, and told Thor, “Who said it was a joke?”

Thor grabbed Loki’s remaining taco.

“Hey!”

Thor’s door frosted.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! Time got away from me. I clearly do not have 2020 vision. Heh? Eh? Eh?
> 
> I'll do a double header this coming weekend a penance. Ramen.

The mouth behind the mail cart told Loki, “Congratulations on making it four months.”

Secretaries and assorted staff pressed their own “wow, you haven’t been fired” buttons, astonished the seasons changed but the person answering Thor’s calls didn’t, unusual, as the rainbow of different handwriting in files dated only this year would attest.

Anyone else and the turnover would’ve been justifiably high. This was Thor.

“So,” said Loki, separating his Danish, the only Danish worth something in this world Thor would agree, “why the difficulty finding an assistant?”

Thor’s coffee hid his mouth, but his eyes did all the necessary talking, brow assisting in the effort of the “How dare you ask that?” Leaning against the kitchenette counter like he owned the place, which he did, at least the majority, he squinted down at Loki, the civilized person eating at the table. “They weren’t right for the job.”

Loki nodded like that was not meaningless. “What would you say makes someone right for the job?”

“I don’t know,” said Thor, irritated, needing another sip of coffee to soothe him. His Adam’s apple bobbed up into the overflow of stubble Thor haphazardly managed then slipped back down under the bare skin below. “It’s not something you can see on paper. What? Are you looking for an assistant for yourself?” 

“No. Not yet. I was engaging in some introspection.”

“Is that what they teach you in your Ph.D.?”

“You joke, but actually, technically, they do, yes. Maybe, you should go for your Ph.D. A classical one, not one, you know, given away.”

“Don’t be jealous I didn’t have to spend my entire life in university to get mine. That was your choice.”

“Yes, and considering that I was the one right for the job, I think my choices can’t be all that bad.”

“Or they prove you’re certifiable enough to take whatever I throw at you.” Thor thought he had Loki insulted with that one, proud of himself. It was cute. “If you’re crazier than me, I have no choice but to be saner.”

Seeing as how Loki walked in on Thor’s nose burying between the threads of Loki’s jackets when he thought Loki would be gone no less than, what, a dozen times in the span of two weeks, Thor wasn’t in any position to judge sanity or lack thereof. However, carrying on the delusion that he wasn’t bat guano same as Loki kept Thor opening his front door for Loki to ejaculate millions of neurons onto Thor’s orgasmic sheets, so Loki gladly let Thor think that Loki was the crazy one.

Which Loki was not. 

#

Loki read Thor this week’s schedule as Thor sipped his coffee at the window. “Thursday, there is a field trip from LA Public School 4 coming for a tour of the campus. I see that’s been an event for five years now.”

Thor turned, read to defend himself against the implication that was surprising, the community outreach, but he instead saw Loki had been pleasantly surprised. “An event is one way to describe it.”

“Oh. You’re not a child-whisperer too?”

“These aren’t the very small ones. They’re small, but they can talk, think. Fifth graders,” he said. Thor had a mental representation: about to his hip, speaking in full sentences, both adult front teeth, but he had no clue how long they’d been sharing his planet with him. 

“They’re ten.”

“Ten-year olds,” Thor said, now understanding. “They’re full of energy, chaotic energy. They ask strange questions”—strange enough for Thor to pull an agonized face that Loki tried (barely) and failed not to laugh at—“and they’re at an age where they think they know everything. They’re cute, but hm.”

“Look at you. A man with the power to do anything he wants doing something that takes him out of his comfort zone.”

“You like kids?”

“I adore them, and they adore me. I’m tall and handsome and never skip out on telling them how the adults around them are in fact as stupid as they think.”

“Wait. Of course, you’d like kids. They’re sarcastic and say what’s on their mind without it ruining their lives. You admire that.” Thor was proud of how original he knew that must’ve been.

“And you don’t?”

Loki’d learned very young that the only way to dodge a “no” answer was to never ask, and if Loki had asked if he could chaperone, Thor would’ve laughed and mentioned the important calls and emails that would be going unattended if Loki wasn’t around to babysit, and Loki would’ve had to come clean about his script, and Thor would’ve had feelings, unsubstantiated ones, but Thor wouldn’t have just had the question marks in his eyes when Loki joined him in the marrow of the golden SpaceA symbol in the main lobby.

A crowd of mini-humans spilled out of the pencil yellow school buses out at the curb. 

“Be on your best behavior,” Thor told him, and he strolled forward to catch the frantic handshakes of the schoolteachers. He introduced Loki as his “assistant Loki” there to give them a break so they could enjoy themselves too. They thought that was so generous of him. It was well-played of Thor. It was also the only trick up his sleeve, endearing himself to the adults, because the kids sure as hell didn’t know what to make of Thor.

The secret was that children, believe it or not, were adults minus a decade or two. They knew that, and after Loki shook as many of their grubby hands and asked them the names written on their temporary SpaceA badges, they knew that Loki did too.

Thor stood on the sidelines with his hands tucked under his biceps as Loki and the teachers helped the students wrangle on the miniature aluminum SpaceA lab coats. He’d say that all of them had it handled; what did they need him for? No. He was afraid he’d break them — the kids, not only the suits.

Discomfort turned Thor’s smile shaky and kept him exhaling when he thought everyone was looking into the Kubrickian clean room or gawking over the fin from SpaceA’s retired, first rocket.

Thor wanted to be liked. He also wanted to help humanity explore space and usher the transition to renewable clean energy, but that was ongoing. He wasn’t used to people not automatically liking him or at least pretending to, and here were these chaos machines that randomly turned to one another insulting each other’s moms. They thought he was cool. Thor was Space Noah. He got to touch the rocket booster as he told them what the parts were called and dumbed down how it worked to them. What did Thor have to offer to them one-on-one that’d keep him in their good graces?

Corporate Land was full of man-children. Little did Thor know, he had the tools to figure out what Loki had, but Loki enjoyed Thor happily helping out the caterers to get him off the hook from helping the kids get off their lab coats and get ahold of their astronaut utensils.

“You nannied,” one of the teachers accused him of. “Five years?”

“No, zero. I had younger siblings, but we were too close in age for me to be a ‘nanny.’”

Another teacher gave him both her theory and the Eyes, the lamp for the others to fly in and compliment his kid-side manner doing their best erotica audiobook voices. He couldn’t imagine what disappointments the husbands — or the wife in the one teacher’s case — on the other side of those wedding rings were, but no thank you. He didn’t have to formulate an alibi because he was being pulled out of the circle by the hand-shaped lava on his lower neck.

Thor put them at the end of a table.

His knee knocked the immovable force that was Thor’s. He looked at Thor for an apology that would never come.

Thor helped the server place the gourmet space food in front of Loki first then himself which Loki thanked the server for. Sorry was only one word. “It figures you’d be a hit with people who don’t know any better.”

“Which is what goes through my mind when I see one of your praised viral quotes.”

That earned the “touché” lift of one eyebrow as Thor’s spoon deformed his lower lip. Thor’s lip rebounded gracefully. 

The kids around were sharing confused looks over why they couldn’t understand Thor and Loki, but they were as independent as they’d ever be if you asked them. They were sure they’d solve it on their own.

“How many siblings do you have?” Thor asked. He hadn’t overheard that Loki had any.

“Two. Brothers. They’re three and six years younger than me. You have a sister, right?”

“Unfortunately.” Thor’s lower lip emerged from his mouth clean and so glossy that Loki could make out his silhouette. “Do you want some — kids?” 

“Kids are more of a question of ‘do I need them?’ Most people don’t know that, explaining why the world is the way it is. I’m surprised you don’t have five or six.”

Thor was about to laugh. “Interesting segue there. I’ll pretend you didn’t mean it.”

“Of course.”

“The companies are my babies. I couldn’t give what I need to in order to be a good father. Or that was how it’s been for a long time. Now? I guess if I found the right person there’d be no reason not to.”

“Then maybe you should start running a matchmaking service in addition to an aerospace company.”

A hand covered in who knew what reached out to touch him. With Loki’s attention, ‘Carrie’ asked, “Can I tell you something, Loki?” and Loki telling her yes, she strained up to whisper, “You smell really good.”

“Thank you,” was the only real response to that.

“Like apple pie,” she added out loud.

They asked her what she said to him, which was also on Thor’s mind, and she proudly repeated. 

“He does!”

“I bet you have a super pretty girlfriend, Loki.”

“No, he has a lot of girlfriends.”

“Or a boyfriend!”

“Duh, Thor’s Loki’s boyfriend!” seemed inevitable.

Loki and the sip of vitamin water he took left Thor to handle that one.

Laughing, Thor said, “Loki’s not my boyfriend.” But the idea of it just tickled him. Kids said the darndest things. “Have any of you seen how jet fuel is made?” he asked after he contained his laughter. That answer was no. “If you all finish your food early, I can show you.”

Understandably jet fuel beat Loki’s love life.

#

A conference call with the Prime Minister of their own Norway forbid Loki from Thor’s home office. Good riddance. Loki preferred the freedom to inspect Thor’s sanctuary without Thor around to judge over having to hold his tongue about how hilarious the rimming the alleged leader of one of the best countries in the world was giving Thor for Norway’s late entry to the second Space Race. 

Considering that Thor’s office saw more of him than his home, the showroom-like sterility of it was expected. Thor had personal affects if you counted the awards littering the shelves and tables the housekeeper/sheet-fairy kept dusted and the pat-on-the-back buys like signed footballs and a vintage Formula 1 car steering wheel. None of them said much about Thor that couldn’t be absorbed from the _New Yorker_ ’s profile or PR mandated interviews with actors turned anchors, unsurprisingly, with how Thor’s emotions constipated him — real emotions besides happy and mad which did exist contrary to what Thor would’ve had everyone believe.

And the photo album Loki rescued from a drawer in one of the umpteen sitting rooms would prove it.

“Thor’s Fifth Summer” had Loki at “Thor’s.”

Thor’s eyes had always been in a perpetual smile (for Loki, glare.) That was settled. Even when his head was only physically big and the rest of him hadn’t caught up, Thor had those squinting blue eyes jumping the gun for smiles, small smiles his little, sometimes jam and ice cream-covered mouth made or the ones that showed off his two missing bottom teeth. His hair never got above his shoulders too and withstood the abuse of mud and sand and the undocumented things that Four-and-a-Half-Year-Old Thor and his friends, so many friends — another constant — had gotten up to.

Thor’s Old Hollywood mother in her sun hats and sundresses and his pensive, ex-charmer of a father with his large gold watch introduced themselves to Loki holding Thor’s hand and hugging Thor on their laps, looking down at Thor with the genuine love that the acolytes thought they had but never could because they didn’t know Thor. They didn’t know Thor building sandcastles with his father and blowing dandelion seeds with his mother. Yes, Thor Odinson had been human.

And yes, Thor Odinson had not only once not been a kilometer of shoulders and a kiloton of muscle but had pretended to cook in some friend’s Barbie-themed play kitchen.

Loki stored a copy of that one away on his phone.

His name was the signal to put the photo album back and go annoy Thor by withholding the satisfaction of seeking Loki out to lecture about responsiveness.

The far less adorable version of Thor had too good of a meeting with his squire in disguise to care too long. He needed Loki to write an email as dictated while he prepared a beautiful green shake, none of which was offered to Loki of course. One had to wonder where it all went so wrong.

“You’ve aged well.”

Thor’s green shake kept him silent, letting him dedicate himself fully to the never-ending search for the sanity in Loki. What a fruitless search that would always be. He gulped it down. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“You started off high. Usually, it’s all downhill from there. Not speaking from experience.”

“I was beautiful then. I’m beautiful now. I have good genes.”

“You do. When someone is beautiful, they tend to be cold, but your mother, she gave off this warmth. Just from looking at her, you know she’s a friendly person. Your father—”

“Don’t.” Yelling would’ve been redundant when that tone alone sufficed. Thor, glowering, went to drop his cup into the sink. “I don’t want to hear about what you thought about your fucking Google search.”

Thor’s father, dearly departed as of ten years ago according to one of the early handwritings in the secretarial files, taken by a heart attack. The ten years hadn’t scarred over Thor’s scabs about it. Unsurprising.

You could’ve called it metaphorically holding up his hands in a no-harm, no-foul, telling Thor, “You should put the photo album on the coffee table.”

“What—?” Thor’s light bulb screwed in. He didn’t quite like what it illuminated. “I would have it out if I wanted people to see it.”

“But you were adorable. It would be a gift to show everyone that. Affirmation in their belief of the divine. You weren’t an ‘ugly duckling’ like many mere mortals, myself an exception.”

Thor grunted in manufactured doubt because he already knew that.

“I just know when you were a baby you were a cherub. Rosy chubby cheeks and a halo of delightfully frizzy blond hair. And I’ll bet you had a pout too. I would’ve eaten you up.”

“One day with kids and suddenly, you’re baby crazy.”

“Quite the delayed reaction since that was almost a week ago.”

“Maybe, you’re about to go into a heat.” That almost sounded like wishful thinking. The multiplier heat would’ve put on Loki’s scent should’ve held Thor over enough that he could give himself a few days off of the rest of Loki.

“You think that I can only find you adorable as a kid if I’m ovulating? Don’t tell me you had low self-esteem as a child.”

“No, you saw. I was fucking gorgeous then too.” Thor exhaled. “Come on. I need to get through some reports.”

If Loki set Thor in the Barbie kitchen as his home screen, that was his business. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've, um, added a reminder on my calendar to update this so "oh, but I did it last week" doesn't turn into weeks plural under your nose.

Loki’s professor’s strongly worded email about his attendance or lack thereof to a class he was for bureaucratic reasons taking had him telling Thor, “I’m not coming to Berlin with you.”

“Why not?”

“I need to show my face at least once a month in this class, so he won’t start ‘losing’ my coursework to punish me.”

Thor started asking what the professor’s name was, but Loki cut him off and told Thor he had more important uses of his time than some professor’s ego trip. “Well, not when he’s fucking with my plans.”

As much as Loki was at pains to admit, “You functioned fine without me before. You’ll be fine without me. I’m sure of it.”

“I don’t want to be ‘fine,’” said Thor, but he shelved the argument till Loki was shouldering his bag which was when he informed Loki that they would be stopping to buy sheets, sheets that Loki would be scenting for Thor to pack.

And Loki thought the penthouses were out of a dream. Walking into a Bed, Bad & Beyond with Thor out of Thor’s chrome Ferrari for silk sheets fit in between “ice cream in the dead of winter with Isaac Newton” and “grocery shopping with Bigfoot.” Fluorescent lights didn’t highlight Thor’s flaws like it did the rest of them but put him in stark relief, tie left on the center console, escapee hair collecting in locks outside of his low bun. “Do these seem like my sheets?” 

Loki thumbed over the sample fabric. “It’s close.”

“Close enough.”

The cashier blushed her way through checking Thor out.

Thor waited outside Loki’s bedroom as Loki opened up the sheets on top of his bedspread and scented them the old faithful way. He folded them up and put them back in the package for Thor and sweaty and sex-stained like Thor had to expect him to be at this point, he handed them to Thor who’d been lying on his couch without anything scent neutralizing around to pour out.

“I’ll see you in a day.”

“Sure.”

No goodnight or goodbye. How many people could’ve said they hadn’t gotten that from Thor? Not many.

Loki was singular in the open disdain he received from Thor. It was tempting to tell that to the aggrieved man in the argyle sweater he politely said hello to taking a seat at the seminar table. “I apologize I haven’t been here for the scintillating conversation. I’ve been cultivating Space Jesus Thor Odinson’s contempt.”

He made the various Boy Scout orgs the world over proud by warming his desk chair with his ass for an hour of phone calls that Thor had pawned off to him he’d have gotten around to in the next week. What better did he have to do than go back to Caltech to burn through a dry erase marker and end up lassoed into a discussion with a fossil taking up a professorship?

His officemate, existence known only by the filled white board-covered walls and balled-up seaweed wrappers overflowing out of the trash can, had poor taste in gin. Because he hadn’t opened up the perfectly fine gin gifted to him. At least he wouldn’t miss it now that it was in Loki’s top desk drawer.

Loki was getting a FaceTime call from “The Thor.”

He let it ring till the last second.

Did Thor have a bad angle?

He did have a few drinks in him as told by the dewy glow at the hairline not covered by his loose hair, along the slope of his nose, at his bottom lip. Thor seemed warm. “That doesn’t look like the office.”

“Not your office.” He held his phone at bird’s eye view and showed Thor the passing thoughts on the white boards, the impersonal gray sides of his blank cubicle, the hint of scrawl on his office-mate’s side of the room. “Here is my other office where the real science happens. Dr. Cho holds the majority of credit for that.”

“Dr. Cho?”

“Yes, the child prodigy. They figured they’d stick the prodigies together though I cower in the face of his greatness since his first Ph.D. came at 19, and I got mine at a measly 26. And that this will be only my second while he’s hard at work on his third now at 25.”

“Sounds like he has never had a life.”

“Academia is his life. He’s slated to win a Nobel before he’s 35 at this rate.”

“As I said, he’s never had a life.”

“I don’t know.” Loki held the gin into frame. “You’d be surprised what us academics get up to. All the research broadens your horizons.”

Thor was defying the thousands of miles between them to fix Loki with that aura-reading stare of his. What was Thor looking for? Just once, he wanted to ask him that without Thor there to finally act on throttling him, but why waste his single magic 8-ball shake on the obvious?

“So, why are you calling at… 3:26 am?”

“You’re technically on the clock. I wanted to see what I’m paying you to do.” 

“Ooh. You miss me now that you have stuffy nerds around you to remind you how entertaining I am.”

“’Entertaining,’ that’s a good word to use.” Thor left the bright lights of a bar out of frame but always in Thor’s suites. As he climbed into the bed fitted with those silver silk sheets that’d been on Loki’s bed last night, he recapped his adventures being underhandedly condescended to at the tech conference. In all of the profiles and the amplified photoshoots, they’d forgotten that Thor had been an aerospace engineer before he was a celebrity-model. He thought it was hilarious, chuckled rumbles through Loki’s phone. “You’d have had a field day.”

“Well, I don’t get a wide berth at conferences for no reason.”

“You should get home, get some rest. I land at 5:00 am Los Angeles time.” And he expected Loki to be there.

So, Loki was. Engine hair wafting in his face and all.

Did it need to be said that Thor wore it more glamorously than he did?

“Good morning, Mr. Odinson.”

Thor stopped at the last step of the stairs, that much closer to the sky than Loki than usual. “Loki.”

He made way for Thor to lead to the car. “Are you dropping me off, or —?”

Thor didn’t get in.

“I’m taking that as a ‘no.’”

“You really were a prodigy.”

Breakfast was in a 50s relic of a tin diner along the way back to Thor’s, hot cakes with a heaping of Thor explaining how great he was. The Stockholm Syndrome would’ve had Loki believe he’d missed it. Which he hadn’t. 

#

The University sent out an email celebrating the endowment of the computer science department – yes, not a professorship, not several but the entire computer science department by the SpaceA Foundation.

Loki didn’t mention it. He didn’t need to because Thor stopped by his desk to explain that his endowment had included stipulations, stipulations such as the board (Thor) having a supervisory role to the staff. “I told them I’m very interested in the work you’re doing and that you’ve been working closely with me. That’s as close as you can get to ‘hands the fuck off’ without explicitly saying it.”

“I don’t understand why you felt the need to do that,” Loki said, understanding fully that this was Thor pulling more of the rope to his side.

“Your professor interfered with my plans. I’m returning the favor.”

“Why would SpaceA have any interest in Computational Chaos Theory?”

“If you’re dedicating five years of your life to it, it must be interesting.”

Three really.

To Thor’s ass, Loki suggested, “Our generous patron could donate a new supercomputer to the computer science department.”

The next morning, the University sent out another email that their new endower had surprised them with a new supercomputer for “special use in the endeavors of the university’s Chaos Theorists.”

Thor’s first words to him were “We’re leaving for Denver for the next four days.”

Loki’s professor sent him no strongly worded emails about his absence.

#

The CEO at one of the largest banks of the world and his reasonably aged wife invited Loki back to their home. They’d waited till Loki had gotten halfway through his drink to do that unlike the Ebenezer Scrooge impersonator back at the fundraiser in New York who’d leaned in to tell Loki he should check out the view his hotel room had or the Techbros in San Francisco that’d asked if Loki “knew how to party” holding onto their lingerie model girlfriends. For that, Loki told them he’d take a rain check, but that it’d been a pleasure chatting with them.

He went to the bar and ordered a shot of vodka straight. Thor’d interrupted the Swiss politician trying to lure Loki to a dinner for two and the heiress that wanted a drink in private with him because Loki was “on the clock.” If the perky ass in the bandage dress didn’t have him enraptured, he’d have interrupted again.

He was going to return the favor, but glasses in a wrinkled suit got in the way. “Dr. B. I didn’t think this was your scene.”

“Trust me. It’s the farthest thing from it. But Thor lets me off the hook for the other dozen of them if I show my face once in a while.” Bruce’s hand gripped his drink, clear, water knowing him, for dear life. Sweat beaded at his temples. A waiter would bump into Bruce and the glass would shatter, and with fistfuls of the waiter’s jacket, teeth at full snarl, the center of the room’s attention.

Goosebumps had snuck down the backs of his arms and his spinal cord. They liked to do that when those Hans Christian Anderson terrors of alpha people were around.

On those lists of “Alphas in Silicon Valley” or “People You Might Not Have Known Were Alphas” Bruce had never made an appearance. That had to be by design.

Loki cleared his throat, and Bruce’s eyebrows started coming back down from the stratosphere. “Would you mind playing hooky with me?”

“Okay, but if Thor asks, it was your idea.”

An advantage of the venue having been a cathedral in its past life was that he and Bruce walked maybe a meter total out of the hall and found a hiding spot to place their glasses and asses down in.

Bruce’s wild rabbit sensibilities called for medium talk, complaints about the clientèle of these necessary evil events which naturally graduated in grievances about how it all bounced off the shield of Thor’s social ineptitude courtesy of his accidental charisma, nothing new for Bruce but overlooked by everyone else. Bruce had been lurking around the background of shots of Thor networking — or everyone else eagerly networking with Thor — since orientation week of their freshman year. “Better him than me. All the boring micromanaging, now, I can do that any time.”

“The Simon and Garfunkel of Space.”

“God. Someone really said that?”

“Oh, definitely. It’s accurate, no?”

“It is. Which is why it’s so awful. He’s the big, beautiful charisma machine. I’m the quiet one with the brains. We get it. We got it over 20 years ago. I’ve moved on. You don’t need to pity me. My net worth doesn’t deserve it. Save it for someone that actually needs it ‘cause believe it or not, I don’t.” That didn’t scream that Bruce hadn’t moved on at all or anything. 

“Yes, I think you get disqualified from pity when you can get a date with a supermodel with a phone call. Though if you’re anything like Thor I’m sure the chase has infested all parts of your life.”

“Thor’s done more than enough chasing between the two of us for me to continue not to.”

“One of you has to observe your commitment to your marriage to Mars.”

“Thor’s committed. He just doesn’t take ‘no’ for answer. Me, I get my ‘no,’ and figure out another path. I’d call my way better since it saves me from the heartache of realizing this lifestyle isn’t very compatible with a healthy personal life.” Bruce had gotten as close to that topic as Loki was getting him. “How have your last… four — yeah, four months been? You haven’t quit yet, so I’d say that’s a good sign, but you don’t strike me as a quitter.” 

He got up and didn’t respond immediately like he had to think about it, formulate a lie. “It’s fine.”

“You don’t sound too sure about that.”

“No. No, I am. I — it’s just —” After his pacing, he wiped his hands on his pants like they were clammy. “I don’t see why Thor had such a high turnover. Clearly, there is a ‘why,’ and I’m waiting with bated breath to find out firsthand.”

“Well, he went through some temps because he didn’t want a repeat of the original debacle. Guess he figured if he didn’t keep them around long enough they wouldn’t get the chance to try anything.”

Loki made his face half-alarmed, half-confused. “You’re not telling me one of those people with Twitters dedicated to him that clog up the first few replies of his PR’s every tweet got the job and tried to kill him, are you?”

“I don’t know. I mean, maybe. She was tracking his every move, tapping his phone. Who knew what the plan was down the line? She was a nutcase. Could practically smell it on her.” Bruce smiled to himself like the framed photograph of a wedding the venue hosted reminded him of a joke. “Thor smells like you.”

He looked at the couch Loki was by instead of at him. “I didn’t realize because I’d never smelled you, but you’re not hiding it anymore.”

“So, you think that it’s something to be hidden.”

“99% of us aren’t Thor. We’re playing right into society’s hands when we pretend otherwise. There’s a reason the vast majority of people are normal. And hell, the only reason it works for Thor is because he’s Thor. Being alpha is as central to his identity as being Norwegian. I thought he’d learned something with Lorelei, but Thor didn’t stop cocaine until it put him in the hospital for a week.”

Had it been the helplessness, the fury of his mother, or the gym and work days missed that had scared Thor straight? A cocktail of all three seemed realistic.

“Thor’s drug of choice these days is caffeine. While the threat of him smashing a laptop marginally increases when he hasn’t had his hourly cup, there will be no week-long hospitalizations, not for him. And I can promise that the indifference toward Thor’s fame and fortune is not an act. Don’t tell him this, but all I want from Thor is for him to pay me and eventually be an incredible reference to a fulfilling job.”

“Well, let me tell you now. You applied to the wrong job if that’s all you want. The fact that you’re still here says it. And you’re too smart to not have figured that out.”

“Thor is actually calling me right now. Thank you for the company, Dr. B.”

Thor became an echo midway through asking Loki where he was, already out in the hall, his new friend nowhere in sight. “I thought you left with someone.”

“Despite some people’s greatest efforts, no, I’m still here.” He took a break from Thor with the lacquered tops of his shoes. “I’m going to catch a cab home. I think I’m getting my first case of jet lag.”

“No.” As Thor started pushing him, Bruce filled in a space in the loose clusters of people waiting for cars and searching for privacy, wanting neither of those things. 

Loki nodded his goodbye to Bruce.

#

A “Lorelei” deep-dive through all the internet’s annals unearthed two objects of interest: one, a website for a “hypnoerotic experience” courtesies of the cherry bomb of a Playboy centerfold smoldering over the site’s header, and two, a mugshot of said cherry bomb dated three and a half years ago.

Charges, stalking, breaking and entering, multiple instances of violating a restraining order, and oh, false imprisonment.

Lorelei vacationed in a jail for a curiously short amount of time for the felonies that’d promised a minimum of 20 years in prison and then, was deported on her way back to Norway. None of her filter drowned pictures of her and her diamonds partying on her Instagram had the U.S. as the backdrop, and Loki couldn’t help but think that it wasn’t her decision.

So, all Loki had to do was not have a restraining order filed against him by Thor for stalking him then violate that restraining order by breaking into Thor’s house and somehow holding him hostage to not be the worst assistant Thor’d ever had.

Noted. 

#

“’World’s best executive assistant,’” Thor recited out loud as he groped Loki’s new mug, precariously and recklessly close to wasting some of Loki’s tea. Coffee cultists. Thor was their Jim Jones.

“You can read. That’s—” Loki grinned as Thor decidedly did not. “—that’s what we all expected.”

Thor’s newfound focus on Loki spared Loki’s tea from nothing more than a safe trip back to Loki’s desk. “Weird gift to get yourself.”

“Debatable. Not that I gave it to myself. Your hiring manager, a good hire I must say, decided to recognize the thankless job of all the various assistants and secretaries.”

“You’re not an executive assistant.”

“Squares are only sometimes called rectangles.” Loki’s eyes took over on the elation that his “world’s best executive assistant” mug covered on his mouth.

“Get me President Rogers on the line. I have something I want to talk to him about.” Short of the door handle, Thor paused. “Make sure to keep his secretary on the line.”

“Afraid I’ll ask for the nuclear launch codes?”

“Best case scenario.” Thor had _that_ ass. He needed to learn that he couldn’t have everything. Temperance was a virtue, one that Loki would teach him.

The secretary to the President of the United States trustingly traded Loki off to her boss because trust was what the Illuminati-like bartered in since they all had so much money and power among one another that they were meaningless.

“President Rogers speaking, how can I be of service today?” asked the Dream of 1930s New York, the leader of the allegedly Free World, the most powerful man — only officially — on the planet.

All of the naysayers felt the chilling roil of their guts through the force as Loki said, “Loki speaking. Mr. President, if you would hold a few moments.”

A press of the finger and it was Thor on the line.

“Thor, I have President Rogers.” 

And another finger press cut Thor off with Steve Rogers, American President.

Conspiracy theorist forums had torn what little hair they had out imagining the “Thor?” “Ah, Steve. It’s nice to hear you haven’t been assassinated,” “Thank you. I’m happy I haven’t been either. So, how are you? How’s getting us to the Red Planet going?” that transpired. They could’ve passed for mortals chatting at a sports bar over mass manufactured beer, not two of the most powerful people in the world.

Loki hung up his line after the smedium talk intensified.

When the phone rang with Thor’s line, Loki already had a bit of a smile before Thor said, “Your mug is wrong.”

“I disagree, but go ahead.”

Did you know what so many people would’ve and could’ve done with the information of when and where Thor was meeting with the U.S. President? What havoc they could’ve wreaked? Yet what did Loki do? He tucked it away on Thor’s calendar with an American flag emoji.

As the world’s best executive assistant would do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steve is President AU is a real tag. I know it, and I haven't even bothered to look.


	9. Chapter 9

Loki didn’t know how manners worked in Billionaire Cloudland, but if you told someone to be at a place at a certain time, it was only polite that you’d be there to meet them. This had missed Thor seeing as how Loki’s reception was a locked door.

But if it’d been about Thor’s precious sheets getting scented, Loki bet Thor would’ve been in the doorway before Loki got out of the car — as usual.

It was a matter of principle. The pin-pad above the door handle posed only as great a challenge as it was to remember Thor’s mom’s birthday, the technophobic idiot.

Their flight to Portland left in two hours, but it was Thor’s jet. They’d leave whenever Thor was ready, and Loki didn’t spot any suitcases in the foyer to estimate when that would be.

As tempting as the “Where the hell are you?” text he’d get in three hours after Thor got around to it was, Loki liked Portland. It was pretension with an overcast. Thor wouldn’t been keen for it for those reasons, but he wasn’t out soaking in the sun on the balcony or having a contemplative moment in the sunny overflow in the upstairs hall’s window to compensate. He did have a balcony matching the one downstairs attached to his room. That’d be peak Thor, elbows resting on the railing, a tumbler of self-brewed ice coffee in his hand, basking his face in the sun in his PJs because why the hell not?

Oh, Thor, who was lying face-down in a condensed Jesus pose, was basking, basking in the limbs of Los Angeles’ Assorted Flavors. Thor had tasted the rainbow – a piss yellow blonde canoodling his bicep, an absolutely natural red-head down there at the foot between Thor’s and that curly nest of hair that was either dark brown or dirty – you couldn’t tell with the artsy types. Seriously, he had shitty line art tattoo on his shoulder, and he was in LA. And in Thor’s bed right beside him. You couldn’t forget the wild card with the silver trend-chasing haircut drooling on the shoulder of the blond.

Something told Loki that this, the four of them, was more common than a one or a two, even a three on one.

Thor’s back muscles awakened down to the sheet covering his and his friends’ asses that definitely no longer smelled like Loki.

Thor jolted onto his hands as that flight and that meeting in six hours or maybe that conversation he’d had with Loki slipped past the after-image of endless limbs. He surveyed the damage in his bed and slowly turned around.

Humans had evolved to cross their arms and smirk, so Loki could that moment.

“Get up” was all the warning they got before Thor started shaking their arms and telling them they needed to go. There would be a car there for them soon that would take them anywhere (that wasn’t here.) His tone was very “disappointed parent having caught their teen sneaking back from that party at 2 am,” an interesting strategy for getting your one night stands out of your house, but effective. Loki was granted an eyeful of the genitals that Thor had been inside of as they shambled up and around.

“Hey,” the red head said to him, bending down to pick up the lacy black panties Loki had almost stepped on.

“Exciting night.”

Her laugh said that he had no idea though if she was in the mood already, was Thor’s sex as earth-shattering as Thor and the porn stars that flashed their pink in his Twitter replies thought it was?

Thor spared Loki the sight of his cock stained with lube and spit with a flannel robe that’d been waiting on his nightstand. When he said, “We,” he meant Loki and him, not the body-shaped air because that was what it might as well have been with how Thor was ignoring them using his bathroom and whispering over their phones. He finished, "…really only need to be there by 4:00.”

He preferred not to have his sensory memory of Thor’s scent tainted by whatever the hell was on him and moved himself away from Thor when he approached.

Thor was starting to pack. Because the packing he’d done last night hadn’t been putting clothes into luggage.

Not once did it occur to him to call Loki and tell him to not drag himself up here because false alarm, they weren’t leaving now after all.

“Where are you going?”

He pulled a face that would’ve been made by a stock model beside the definition of disgusted. “I’m going to go wait downstairs.”

He did, sat comfortably on the Freud patient chaise in the foyer, hands clasped over his knee, wishing the one-night stands luck as they passed. Who needed a chair with a back when you had the upper hand to support you?

Thor carefully placed his luggage where it should’ve been before. He misted Loki with his usual scent back in place, but he had their skin flora overstaying their welcome on him, and not wanting a share of that, Loki minded the space between them when he passed him out of the door more meticulously than Thor did during his desk roosts. If there was a chance at a gaining a lead on Thor into the restaurant they stopped for lunch, to the table the oozing hostess showed them to, or onto the jet, Loki snatched it.

Loki could’ve beat Lord of the Rings in page count if he had all the mornings or even afternoons that Thor had come into the office, freshly scrubbed of the dreams come true of the NPCs that populated this cesspool.

Why the hell was Loki scenting Thor’s sheets really?

“Should I bother giving you a key?”

Loki had been bludgeoning a textbook chapter sent by a past chemistry professor as Thor acquainted himself with what the meeting was actually about and pacing the room. He clicked his pen.

“You already know my access code.”

“Don’t worry. I have no plans of using the code or key while you’re home ever again.”

He wrote in the meeting notes: _“Thor, continuing to neglect to mention to the room how terrible he is in bed and that he exclusively fucks the starstruck to compensate, ‘jokes’ about upping the company’s legalized bribery.”_

It was good that Thor had written-off sex with Loki because Loki would’ve exploded and rebuilt Thor’s world, and Thor could barely handle ten minutes in bed without Loki’s scent before cornering him during his late-night tea with his pillow stuck under his arm to tell him through his perfect teeth he’d forgotten.

By the way, Loki hadn’t.

#

“Would you like me to procure entertainment for tonight, sir?”

The bespoke _Eau de TO_ had a rival if you bottled that glare Thor cocked at Loki.

“No.” Thor had to be capable of feeling shame in the first place to be ashamed that his “going out to get a drink” alibi covered for fucking had graduated from strong intuition in Loki to fact. In his “He’s a billionaire?” favorite of trucker jacket, cashmere sweatshirt, and blue jeans, Thor did his best father figure impersonation telling Loki to stay put, neglecting, just as a real father figure would, to include that while Loki would be Rapunzel at the top of Dubai, Thor would be wetting his dick in townies.

Rapunzel hadn’t had the jacuzzi in her bathroom like Loki did.

“Thomas Edison’s” reputation bought the one of its kind bottles of wine surrendered to Loki along with the fruit charcuterie by the bellhop painstakingly not checking to see if the bubbles had full coverage. Aged grapes, fresh Japanese grapes, music to contemplate ruling the world to, and 360 degrees of fine-tuned jets.

That was why Loki had applied for this job.

It would’ve been a waste of a perfectly fine hard-on to not slip himself into his cock sleeve, textured like some contemporary sculpture that Thor would’ve rolled his eyes at, like if Thor’s naturally ribbed for his pleasure fingerprints had been scaled. He’d had to listen to the Horrors of Nepotism dribble in a meeting earlier, so he deserved to indulge himself with an edge session.

The flash of a nuclear bomb would’ve been amazing compared to the door opening in his periphery. Being vaporized would’ve taken stopping out of his hands, but this, Thor fucking barging in, made him stop the rise prematurely.

Thor had some nerve coming in here with his wet hair and his tits and his dick print averse trackies.

“Yes?” Loki asked. “How can I help you?”

“It’s not like that’s your job or anything” was Thor’s reply to Loki’s justified pissiness. “Your door was unlocked. I was checking in that everything was alright.”

Thor testing the integrity of Loki’s door handles and knobs in the dead of night as Loki slumbered away. That wasn’t something that should’ve been taken to the grave though it did explain that one time or two where he’d woken up and heard the handle, but that had been Thor’s impatience or so he’d thought.

“Well, I’m fine,” Loki replied. “You can go get some shut-eye. I’m sure you’re quite… drained.”

Thor didn’t only deflect the barb but actively pushed back against it by bringing himself, his drumming fingers and the flexing tendons on the backs of his hands, closer. “Is that water that hot, or are you just that pink and sweaty?”

“No, I’m just this pale and heat sensitive.”

The static friction of the sleeve collided with the surge of Thor’s shower fresh sexy Sex, and Loki was cumming, cumming like the best full body cramp ever had, but Thor with his stupidly, ridiculously “ _cum_ _”_ hither eyes on his, so he couldn’t, but he was. He was, and like hell he’d let that sound out, biting his bottom lip and holding onto it for fear life, holding onto the jacuzzi’s side for dear life.

The bubbles both foiled any plans Thor had for seeing Loki in total and masqueraded the strings of cum that’d be swimming around. 

“Get out,” said abs. Abs and chest that the t-shirt Thor dropped onto a chair had been covering a moment ago. “I’m going to soak for a bit. The longer you stay in, the less sleep I’ll be able to get.”

“I bathed in this water.”

“Good.” Thor’s hands at his waistband were waiting for Loki to get out of both the bath and the bathroom.

A person couldn’t even have a post-orgasmic lounge in a jacuzzi for fucks sake.

Helpfully, Thor’s impatience handed Loki a bathrobe. The bubbles might’ve gotten in his way, but Thor wasn’t going to let himself and did not turn around, but Loki managed to lift himself out without flashing his semi, sleeve intact, at his damned boss.

“All yours.” Loki took the wine and music with him.

Thor had Loki’s dirty bathwater. To hell with billions of dollars and fame. He said, drying his hair of the cummy water, that they should do that more often. “If you’re taking a bath, tell me.”

That verbatim to any employment lawyer would’ve taken Thor’s billions and his fame, but Loki locked the door behind Thor and put himself to bed with a montage of baths around the world that he’d be bathing Thor in his cum in.

Thor’s sweat would test positive for Loki’s cum at this rate. A lateral move if any.

#

Thor took Loki’s desk duty mobile while Thor tackled the most important task for Mars colonization besides actually building a capable rocket: his cult of personality.

Some foundation-dusted journalist renown for speaking in highly digestible language and looking pensive while doing so played mouth-piece for the Gospel of Thor for housewives and househusbands to cross their legs and squeeze at, for the working women and men to nod appreciatively at their desks and be sure to cast their ballots for that empty suit they’d seen grinning beside Thor in a picture. But Thor still managed to be so humble talking up how instrumental other people were to the dream in front of retired rockets that had been built by his idea. How could they not like Thor even more?

Staying out of the way with the camera crew and production assistants all looking on at Thor walking thoughtfully through the time-line of space exploration down one of the main HQ halls was tailored for Loki to data check and article edit. To these people who maxed out word-count wise with scripts and schedules, Loki looked hard at work, hard at Thor’s work, his important, complex work that they wrinkled their nose in confusion at when they glanced over Loki’s shoulder at all those numbers.

Thor would’ve called bullshit, but Thor was busy escorting the highly-paid parrot into the cockpit of a capsule currently used to ferry astronauts and space food to the ISS.

A call from NASA unfortunately dragged Loki away from the cozy sight.

There was one of those engineered-to-be-comfortable chairs infesting the place that was the correct decision to wait out this interview in.

But then, that’d be fun for Loki, and fun for Loki was a Bat Signal for Thor.

“What are you doing out here?” asked Thor before the “what” was handed to him by Loki. The drawling Space Cowboy was promptly told, “This can wait until our meeting,” and hung up on.

“I wish I had that superpower,” Loki said.

“Why did you answer it in the first place?”

“That’s sort of my job.” While Loki had the opportunity: “Would it be alright if I just went back up to—?”

“No. Let’s go.”

“But, Mr. Odinson, this is halving my productivity.”

Thor, devoid of any concept of long-term consequences, ignored that to jump right back into the soft-balls masquerading as hard-hitting journalism because it was said with dramatic pauses. He was a greedy person, not sated enough by the ego gargling that he had to look at Loki to siphon off the discontent of hearing laughter at a joke of Thor’s that wasn’t even _that_ funny.

“I thought the GREs were boring, but that was the most boring thing I’ve endured,” said Loki.

“That sounds like a problem on your end.”

“Trust me. It is.”

Thor would find Loki’s misery funny but not Loki’s humor, the sadist. The current Marquis de Saade decided to keep Loki from the creature comforts of his desk, a modern day moat, for a little bit longer by jumping in after Loki’s returned phone call with another expedition, this one off company grounds, to, well, a confectionary with a fine-dining skin. Thor had a future as the parent that laughed at their child, hysterical over the birthday cake their faces had been shoved into, and Loki had the type of day that he entitled him to tell Thor that.

That eye roll wasn’t a denial. “It’s hard to believe, but we’re not here because of you. They make some of the best cake in the world here. I think it deserve it after today. And why waste it on your face?”

Thor retrieved the public friendly smile from his pocket for the jolly French chef, and because he hadn’t been schmoozed hard enough earlier, he switched into French, in the key of Thor to Loki’s nervous system like that first time he snuck _Lady Chatterly_ _’s Lover_ at the brink of puberty. “And get him what he wants too.”

Being Thor expanded any menu to the limits of imagination evidently.

Loki’s tongue untied to show Thor French-speaking wasn’t his snowflake skill. The ask that’d get him a sigh and require some pleading got him a grin and thank you for the challenge. Thor’s halo had rubbed off though a not-so-small part of Loki wished it had literally.

Thor’s elbow slashing around his arm when he turned to look at him could count. “I had a feeling you spoke French.”

“It was listed on my resume,” said Loki.

Regret, that was only a word to Thor. Shame too. “Huh. Maybe, I’ll bother reading that in full someday.”

“It probably has too many non-rocket-related words for your taste,” said Loki in German.

“Who knows? It could make good reading material for the toilet,” replied, in German, Thor. He grabbed one of the chocolate gateaus an underling of the chef brought out and bit his smile into it.

Oh, to be a gateau. Loki’s imagination did a fine approximation later. 

#

The American Society in Civil Engineers “Columbia Medal” should’ve gone to a legion of lab coats and pocket protectors pushing up glasses over circuit boards, but the ASCE wanted Thor Odinson to attend their award ceremony, so Thor Odinson — ahem, Thor Odinson, A.M.ASCE, was the Columbia Medal winner.

“Haven’t I gotten this one before?” asked the wrinkle between Thor’s eyebrows, the war drum for all the underappreciated wire wranglers and code monkeys and riposte to any wrong ideas about Thor’s down-to-earthliness. His shoulders shrugged off the knowledge that no, he hadn’t — the Society of Aerospace Engineers had, however, created a “Prize in Outstanding Aerospace Achievement” for him a few years ago — so unlike all the overlooked cogs in the innovation machine, like someone whose normal was awards and consequently was not normal.

Luckily for Thor’s PR’s “humble spaceman” narrative, Thor liked having rooms clap for him more than he didn’t love wearing a suit outside of business hours. He wouldn’t have that opportunity without his silent partner but asking Bruce to present another win for team Halo Effect was as tone-deaf as it got.

Bruce said yes. He would’ve put up some fight but rolled over when Thor hit him with one of the cheesy one-liners about being the yin to his yang. Going along with it kept him in Thor’s good graces where Bruce had been living for how long? Even billionaires were creatures of habit, that Loki could’ve gotten his Ph.D. in by now.

Loki welcomed “Dr. B.” in his sleep-deprived post-grad best onto the jet.

“Can’t say I don’t miss flying private,” said Bruce. He staked out his seat claim over where Thor’s coffee cup and Loki’s bag weren’t, headphones at ready around his neck to shut them out.

Thor had finished up his small talking to the pilot to reply, “There’s nothing stopping you but yourself.”

“It’s self-indulgent. What makes me so important that I can’t fly commercial in first class with everyone else?”

“What doesn’t? All of the work that we do…” And fill in Thor two-handing both his ego and Bruce’s, stroking out all of that thick megalomania.

Bruce’s glasses flashed Loki lens flare when his eternal search for someone to share the “Honestly, Thor?” look with ended thanks to Loki.

Take-off warnings ended Thor’s hand peer pressuring Bruce by the shoulder and moved Thor away for Loki, in opposition to his bag, to lower himself across Bruce’s nervous chinoed knees. What? It was the two of them against the Thor-loving world. Loki was letting Bruce know that Loki was on his side, here for all the venting about the questionable decisions time-washed for everyone but Bruce.

Unlike Thor, no pressure came from Loki who opened up a book and stuck in ear buds in a show to Bruce’s rebounded skepticism that he meant no harm. Ghosts weren’t used to being seen.

Bruce needed the flight to Chicago and check-in to the penthouse to awkwardly shuffle up behind Loki cityscape watching and ask, “Um, would you want to play a game of chess?”

Ice broken.

“I’m headed down to the gym,” Thor said, unaware that this chess board was Yellow Cake Uranium Loki was going to convince Bruce to do nuclear fission with. “You two have fun with that.”

“We will,” Loki replied.

The game was the scenery. No, Loki wasn’t going to throw it, but softening all his edges tucking hair behind the ear and loosening his posture had his focus.

“So, I assume the job is going well?”

“Why do you assume that?”

“Because you wouldn’t be here if it weren’t.”

“Touché. I don’t have any new complaints that I’m sure you yourself haven’t had.”

“What? That it wouldn’t kill the guy to learn how to write and send an email? Or learn that humans don’t have telepathy, so no, you didn’t know exactly what he meant when he said it?” Bruce shook his head. “I’m sorry. He’s your direct supervisor. Probably shouldn’t put you in this position shit-talking him.”

“No, please, shit-talk away. It was nothing I wasn’t already thinking. With the addition of that habit of asking you for your opinion then telling you that your opinion is wrong.”

“Don’t get me started on that.”

“Fine, he doesn’t have to agree with it. But then, why ask?”

“Because he doesn’t wanna hear your answer. He just wants to hear that he’s right. He’s always been like that. If anything, it’s gotten worse. At least now, I’ve got the weight of having been right, so he has to listen to me somewhat.”

“The only person in the world that can oppose Thor Odinson. They should give you a medal for that.”

“Well, all the CTO awards could be considered that. It’s not like he can technically win any of them.”

If it had been Thor across the chess board, first of all, the periods where Bruce was dead silent but listening wouldn’t have been allowed. Being Thor’s left-hand man had trained Bruce into a Monet in the art of active listening. He also knew how to properly play chess like Thor definitely didn’t and let both himself and Loki reflect on moves which Thor would’ve never. It would’ve been Thor shoving pieces around and rushing Loki to till the game was over, both outcomes shrugged off because chess wasn’t his “kind of sport” to quote Bruce when the topic of Thor’s chess attitude came up.

“Of course, not. He only likes fast,” said Loki. “Condolences to all his poor fuckbuddies.”

“What I’ve heard hasn’t been much complaining. He might not be good at the relationship part, but he’s good at the physical.”

“The bare minimum if true. You strike me as someone that’s good at both.”

Bruce’s rook made a stupid move. A distracted move. “Kind words, but you don’t need to flatter me.”

“You can ask Thor. I don’t do flattery.” He let the implications settle in before he asked, “Which of Thor’s girlfriends did you feel the worse for when you realized what she’d gotten herself into?”

Jane. Who was Jane? Jane was “Foster, Jane” on the master list of contacts and tagged to receive Thor’s Happy Holiday cards, one of the 50 that were better than the GenPop SpaceA/Leiptr ones. Bruce described her as “a citizen of science” and “all-around good person to be around.” There was no supermodel bow on top either, just a Ph.D. in astrophysics from — would you believe it — Loki’s own MIT.

“They met at one of these things” meaning the award ceremony tomorrow. Jane had pulled Thor aside to pick his brain on his Mars mission, and Thor had overlooked the betaness and “her being a normal person, not really flashy or anything” and wasted two years of Dr. Jane Foster’s life over long-distance. “She got a job over at Oxford, and that was a wake-up call for her. The rest is history.”

“SpaceA sponsors an astrophysics lab at Oxford.”

“We also sponsor one at MIT. Jane ran things at that one for a few years. Things might’ve ended between them, but the work she’s doing, even Thor sees it’s bigger than him.”

“That’s difficult to believe.”

“SpaceA is sponsoring your lab at Caltech.”

Loki checkmated Bruce. “On second thought, you might be right.”

Thor asked, shower lightening his scent, who won. He bumped Bruce with his elbow when Loki told him. “Come on. You’re representing SpaceA here.”

“It’s that extra Ph.D. he has over me.”

Thor chose dinner, casual where his cashmere sweatshirt didn’t stand out — like that stopped the selfie-seekers from stopping by to gush about how “awesome” he was. While he threw on the smile and put his arms around strangers, Loki and Bruce locked eyes over the menu. He hadn’t noticed anything to not happily clasp his massive hands on the table when the fans were dismissed with a “have a good night, nice to meet you.” “Anything interesting come up over your chess game?”

“Dr. B. told me about your first rocket team competition.”

“We won.”

“You did.” And Thor fucked the girlfriend/teammate of the captain of the second place team. Classic Thor. “Other than that, the usual boring, academic stuff.”

“Expected nothing else,” Thor said, raising his eyebrows at Bruce.

It was that and all the other dismissals that’d come before it that made Bruce say in his mini speech before Thor’s award that they were the best thing to have ever happened to each other “because let’s face it, you wouldn’t be here without me, buddy.”

Thor thought it was funny, a pure joke, and he went up to collect his award from Bruce with a smile that thought that was Thor’s true calling, receiving awards. Well, he’d be drowning in them if he got to Mars. The long-con.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up on "HR Nightmares": Thor asks for a bag of dirty laundry and Loki, gasp, gives it to him?!?!
> 
> I kid. I kid. Or do I?


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We da bess music *airhorn intensifies*
> 
> So, I'm officially 30 chapters ahead now, so Imma start posting again. During Rona Era, I'm gonna be out here in these fanfiction posting streets.

Asking, “How did the meeting go?” was redundant when the murder on Thor’s face answered it fine. He hated redundancies himself – though they were an easy way to annoy other people – but he didn’t agree with Thor seizing him with his unfairly strong grip without asking how Loki might’ve felt about it.

“Get out,” Thor told whoever the office belonged to, which they did wisely.

Fingers caressed his scalp, and his head was pulled to the side.

It was cool and rounded and Thor’s nose pressing in the nook between his jaw and neck. Loki had never been scented like this since he was, what, 14, at least not with all of his clothes on. He might as well have had none of them on with the flame that bypassed them spreading across his skin and eating through it down to the bone.

Thor’s eyes had been blue, not black the last Loki had checked.

“Do you feel better?”

“Yes.” Thor chose the shelf, the nearest flat surface, to sit on instead of the few chairs. “Yes, I’m not going to kill anyone.”

“As much as I’m sure it would’ve been deserved, that’s probably for the better. Americans don’t take too kindly to government officials dying even if they’re smarmy bureaucrats.”

“They’re thinking of opening up to bidding to Lockheed. It’s not a gift from them that we take them. It’s a gift from us. We’re doing more for aerospace in the private sector than they are with trillions at their disposal, and they want to tell me that we’re going to have to fight it out? Again? Where the hell do they get off questioning me?” 

“You really wouldn’t like publish or perish culture then. There would be a lot of journals looking for new reviewers because their old ones were found strangled to death.”

Thor shook his head with half a grin. “I need to go make a phone call, alright? And so do you.”

Loki’d never taken a lesson from Icarus feather-melting flight to the sun. Icarus should’ve used more durable materials, and how many people could’ve said they died seeing the sun? Meanwhile how many died while shitting or not looking both ways before crossing? All the hands absently scratching at necks in the office – how many were in memoriam of being scented by Thor versus project deadlines or unanswered texts from Joe and Jane Nobody?

When the meeting with the robotic arm people went into a dive, Loki wasn’t not anticipating Thor excusing them, just the two of them, and Thor dragging him across the hall into an empty conference room. The sparks that cascaded from the epicenter of Thor’s nose pressing into his neck had him thinking he might be paralyzed.

“I fucking hate these end-of-year meetings” didn’t have much venom when Thor pulled away. “Let’s get this over with.”

Loki held his knuckles to the spot as he wrote notes for the rest of the meeting.

Thor never thanked him for being a security blanket. The money was the “thank you.” Talking about it would’ve suggested it wasn’t intrinsic to the job and that it was above and beyond the call of duty like it wasn’t what Thor hired him for in the first place.

Not talking about it worked for Loki. He got to pretend that it was like answering emails on Thor’s behalf and preserve the façade that he was not like everybody or anybody else and thus immune to Thor’s charms. He’d have to have been dead for that to be true.

He’d take being haunted by the intake of Thor’s breath near his air a thousand times than have silence. He’d seen the sun, and oh, was it glorious.

#

Halasana had Loki bent in half, dick staring him down, toes flush to his outstretched fingertips, and sunrise kissing his ass.

Thor’s footsteps stopped short of Loki’s yoga mat.

Loki’s head found the new source of light. “Good morning.”

Thor was awfully perplexed by the look of Loki’s ass in his boxers. His brain took a break from decoding its mysteries to process Loki’s words. “Never seen you do yoga before.”

“I usually do it in my room before I wake you, but Denver’s mountain air seduced me.” He exhaled into Karnapidasana, tucking his knees down beside his ears. “Have you been wanting to dip your toes into the flexible pool?”

“Running takes care of my cardio.” Which he was about to go do in his muscle porn tank top and evil dick-print-stingy trackies.

“I’ve been looking for a partner for some poses, so if you ever feel like avoiding the volunteer spectators when we’re on the road or the singers and actors living around you back in Malibu in the early morning, I may be amenable to you joining me.”

Thor grunt-hummed and pointedly ignored that offer to go obliviously post himself on a few dozen Instagrams and assorted Twitters as a sighting in the wild to be cherished and face-rubbed with captions like “TBT to when I saw Thor Odinson running before work” for days to come. He couldn’t say Loki didn’t ask.

#

Thor had to settle for Steven Spielberg’s Halloween party while Loki, soon-to-be Ph.D. of Computer Science, had the Computing + Mathematic Sciences — ahem, SpaceA’s Computing and Mathematic Sciences department’s.

“If you change your mind, call a car,” Thor halfheartedly said, thinking he had the better side of this deal, but he didn’t know of Pi Pong or the punch laced according to computer-generated vodka-to-juice ratios.

Math was the universal language. Introduce some alcohol and what might’ve been a milligram of MDMA and voila, no more social awkwardness. Hello a general lack of understanding of social boundaries but Loki had practice dodging lanky arms and diverting the conversation back to less sexual waters.

He excused himself for air not filled with nerd pheromones.

Thor hadn’t called. Why would Thor call? He was in his element with the crème de la crème of society.

“Do you mind if I stand here beside you?” He was blond, blond like those UCLA frat boy-cum-surfers loitering against lamp posts on Venice Beach, board shorts exchange for rumpled business casual under borderline threat of the shoulders underneath. He could’ve been a branch off a certain star-bound family tree.

“No, I don’t think I do.”

He was Dr. Donald Blake from the Biology department who were having a party of their own in the building over. He’d removed himself from the drinking after having one because it exacerbated his MS.

“Aren’t you a poster child for the university?”

“I’m usually somewhere in the slide-show on the website,” he said.

“I should spend more time on the website then.” He could’ve said, “Let’s fuck,” and been less obvious, but Donald laughed instead of freezing up in the de facto “I’m straight” maneuver. Not that Donald was. No one that paid that much close attention to Loki’s mouth was. “Did you happen to drive here, Donald?”

He had. He tried to go back and say his goodbyes, but they both knew no one would’ve remembered if he did or not tomorrow morning.

Donald drove a penguin-friendly Leiptr A4 and had cheesy jazz standards playing that he defended by saying they kept him sane in the LA traffic. It was a funny contrast against his impassioned selling of his microbiology research, in a lot of obvious ways like Loki’s dear boss when he’d elaborate on the bullet points in meeting outlines and grouse about the obtuse emails from extra-corporate collaborators. If Donald could be as passionate about that, he could be passionate in other areas. That Loki was sure of.

“I want to hear more about your research,” Loki told him outside of Loki’s apartment. “Come up. I’d be lying awake thinking of it anyway.”

Donald said, “Really?” That was the extent of his skepticism before he got out. In his defense, he did think Loki was serious or was doing the best job Loki’d seen of playing along by covering up the echo of his footsteps with his voice.

Someone was blocking the hall sitting in front of Loki’s door. Loki could take a wild guess of who that might’ve been.

Again, there were no missed calls or missed texts on Loki’s phone.

Thor had the courtesy to get himself up to face Loki. That was a miracle with the liquor Thor was sweating. “Where the hell have you been?”

“Why are you here?”

“You didn’t show. You were supposed to show.”

“This is news to me. I was at your compsci and math department’s Halloween party which was where I was supposed to be. Did you drive here?”

“Nope, car service.” Thor’s glossy eyes roamed over his shoulder.

Donald looked very chuffed about it all. “I’m a huge admirer.”

He asked in English, “Who is this?”

“Dr. Donald Blake,” Donald said. “Microbiology but the past few weeks have led me to think I might’ve chosen the wrong field. Just joking. But hey, we wouldn’t be complaining if we also got an endowment.”

In Norwegian, “Are you into microbiology?” Thor asked Loki.

“I don’t know. I’m hoping to find that out.”

Thor started to smile. He followed through on that promised smile and threw in a quiet laugh that shook his shoulders. “You can’t be serious.”

Fuck off, Thor.

“Donald, you can go inside.” Loki unlocked his front door. “I’m going to get Thor a ride home.”

The smirk that passed him by on Thor’s face when he cut Loki and Donald both off to go in.

Donald didn’t know what he was running headfirst into. 

“So, I’ve never heard about you, Dr. Donald Blake.” Thor dumped himself into the armchair. “How long have you two known each other?”

“We actually just met tonight. I’d heard of him though.” Donald stupidly sat right by Thor on that end of the sofa without Loki there to deter him, Loki busy getting water to rehydrate Thor’s desiccated brain and to be a good host to his real guest. “I’d like to think he heard of me.”

“I doubt it,” said Thor. He held the eye contact with Loki in defiance as he took a drink. “Bringing someone home after a night,” he said in Norwegian, “don’t tell me you do that often.”

“Only for the especially sexy ones,” Loki replied.

Donald thanked Loki for the glass of water unlike Thor. “Excuse me if it sounds ignorant American of me, but do you two know each other from back in Norway or something?”

Thor relaxed back in the seat which meant something especially thrilling was coming. “I’m the man in Loki’s life.”

Sober Thor wouldn’t have endorsed that.

Donald was stricken as the hopes and wet dreams that lingered around were dashed wrongfully. “Oh. I’m sorry—”

“Thor would like to be the only man in my life,” Loki said, “because he pretends that I am his manservant, which FYI, Thor, is not interchangeable with assistant.”

“Get outta here. Isn’t that something? Wait. That must mean you’re here for something, and I’m interrupting the two of you.” Donald had stood up for some reason when he didn’t need to because he wasn’t interrupting them like Loki tried to assure him, but Thor said, “No, don’t worry about it,” in implicit confirmation.

“But I was all keyed up to hear about your research,” Loki said as Donald grabbed his jacket from the tree.

“You should stop by my office. I don’t want to jeopardize your job. Look at the endowment. Academia is a cold world, and none of us can afford to ruin opportunities like this.” Why was there nobility left in this world? “Thank you for the great night, Loki. I hope we’ll have more.”

“I know we will.”

He slammed the door when Donald dipped down the staircase.

“He seemed nice.”

He didn’t return Thor’s stupid little satisfaction standing over him. “Give me your phone, so I can call you a car.”

“But what the hell can you do with nice? You don’t what ‘nice.’ No. You want… You someone like — someone not like him. No amount of Ph.Ds. will change that.”

“Some supermodels went home alone tonight. Why is that?”

Thor closed his eyes. “You should order pizza. Romano’s. They probably don’t deliver out here normally – they don’t out to Malibu -- but give my name.”

Donald’s unfinished glass of water was right there. It would’ve been a shame for it to go to waste with the water shortage plaguing California.

“Shit!”

Loki was walking away with both empty glasses. “I’ll order a sausage and pepperoni, and an everything.” 

Thor sloshed past the kitchen and after Loki’s en suite door being abused, the shower started.

The pizza had come via frantic and sweaty deliveryman that bowed after Loki scribbled down the three-digit tip to be additionally charged to Thor’s tab by the time Thor reminded Loki he owned those hilariously big track pants that fit Thor just right and that all the oversized tees he’d collected like that “Chemistry Rocks” one weren’t oversized on everyone. 

“Feeling soberer now?” Loki asked.

Thor took two slices and folded them into a sandwich. “So, that’s what your intention with the water was.”

“Of course.” He told Thor he had a guest bedroom though it didn’t have silk sheets for Thor’s last resort, but Thor must have been too focused on inflating his cheeks since he was face-down in Loki’s bed after Loki went to put his clothes in the washer.

He wasn’t about to let himself be kicked out of his bed that easily. He tried and failed to lift one of Thor’s arms – the mystery of what the rockets were made of was solved; they harvested the metal straight from Thor – but pecking Thor’s shoulder with his fingers and telling Thor, “Move over,” succeeded. Thor happened to shift altogether. That wasn’t Loki complaining.

It was there at the back of his tongue when gravity and temperature quintupled, but that came along with a whole-body hug that Loki didn’t mind. He didn’t mind it at all. Certain parts of him anti-minded it, but the rest of him refused to risk disrupting this sweet comfort to settle the warm ache between his legs — and it would’ve been too easy to slip a hand underneath him without Thor noticing — and paradise gave way to sleep because his eyes were opening to light, scant light but light.

Thor was on his back at the farthest reaches of Loki’s periphery, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. His other hand scraped soft down his chest, and it was visible from Pluto, but its disappearance underneath the waist of those sweatpants soaked Loki.

When a hand landed on his arm, to tense or not to tense was the question. Sleeping Loki wouldn’t have tensed – well, Sleeping Loki would’ve woken up, but Thor didn’t know that.

Thor whispered, “Loki,” prodding for wakefulness, but Loki stayed pliant and silent. That gave Thor’s hand the all-clear to start raising rubbing tingles up to his shoulder then down to his elbow and his wrist and back up again, feeling the boniness of Loki, and how much tangibly weaker he was would be porn for Thor. Sure, it was also yet another turn-on for Loki that Thor could’ve rolled over and just smushed him into the bed, but Loki wasn’t the one jerking off though that was more of a pragmatic decision than a moral one.

Loki could’ve gotten-off later to the “Fuck,” Thor whispered before his hand stilled then curled around Loki’s arm, all muscles contracting in sympathy with the ones behind his cock baptizing Loki’s sweatpants.

Thor’s hand slipped away. 

Loki laid there as the reconstruction of his ceiling’s view of Thor’s morning replayed and sustained the hard-on he was letting age to its full orgasmic potential.

When Thor shook the life out of him, Loki stirred.

He’d redressed in last night’s clothes, now dry and clean, unlike the sweatpants Thor’d no doubt smeared his cum into trying to wipe it out. “I’ll see you later.”

“Maybe.” 

He came in 30 minutes late with the orgasms still sighing in his veins, and Thor had nothing to say about it.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Cause I've been s-s-s-s-slackin', figured I'd update sooner than I did the last time, eh.
> 
> Some quick refs and defs because mine are outta control at times, sorry y'all, but just in case:  
> Mai Tais - a very good cocktail  
> Exhibitionism - when you want people to see you do your "thang"  
> Jeffrey Dahmer - very prolific cannibalistic serial killer  
> Bon Jovi - dad rock band (they got a few jams no hate) who are fronted by Jon Bon Jovi as he calls himself  
> Skynet - the evil AI from Terminator  
> Crete - V cool Greek island  
> "l'etat est moi" - a famous phrase from OG Frenchman Louis the Sun King  
> eighty-sized - erased, discarded, that sort of thing  
> Black books - where very rich and powerful people keep the digits for fun things like drug dealers and escorts.   
> Sim - a character in the life simulator vidya game the Sims, which I'm sure a lotta people know but just to be safe

Quelle surprise at the refund to Loki’s checking account from his apartment’s management company.

He wasn’t one to look at gift racing horse in the mouth, but he peeked into the online rent portal for some big red delinquency warning only for that warning to be green, vibrant lively green and not a warning at all, unless he counted all of the rent on the year and a half left on his lease paid as a warning that Thor was absolutely mad.

But the stealth wank Thor had risked Mars for was already a bit of a clue.

Loki’s anonymous patron and his contract-signed grin showed gray, graying, and grayer out of the office, on cloud 900 when he, pocketed hands flanking the bulge, stopped for a refresher of the next notch in his win streak. 

“You have a conference call in 30 minutes,” said Loki, treating his pen like a baton around his fingers for some casual zest for Thor to be annoyed at. “So, does the rent come out of my paycheck?”

“What sense would that make?” Considering Loki didn’t cockblock Thor’s not-explicitly-consensual exhibitionism, Thor could’ve been less… Thor. “Your rent is one less thing for you to focus on other than your job.”

The only focus Loki would’ve ever put on his rent was setting up the automatic payment, but if Thor was going to maintain the asshole factor after Loki’s gift, Loki could let Thor’s control freakery have its way and use the money saved on rent on, well, his savings. Between the rent and the black card, Loki’s own money was getting neglected.

And Thor had how much more than him? Loki’s money would have its time decades from now paying for the Mai Tais that shirtless, oiled young Thor-built men and gorgeous women handed to him poolside at his retirement apartment complex on Crete.

Loki rerouted his direct deposits to his rainy-day fund.

#

That hush-money for Thor’s restless conscience formerly known as Loki’s rent money was pennies to what SpaceA’s shiny new campus in Washington had milked Thor.

Sure, it was a corporate expense, but l’etat was Thor. Plus Bruce and some venture capitalists, but it was Bon Jovi Syndrome — the face was the brain and the body as far as everyone was concerned. And the big, buff body had an-overpriced-penthouse-with-heated-floors-and-rainfall-simulating-windows-in-the-aorta-of-Beverly-Hills funds.

It was basic logic that Thor pay Loki’s rent. Obligation.

“I still think we could’ve gone smaller,” said Bruce. He adjusted his glasses like the city block worth of factory was an angle trick. “We’re building satellites here, not rockets.”

“Really? I think we’ve could’ve gone bigger.” Yeah, said the torturer of tailored sleeves, sleeves that’d signed up under the expectation of peace, not war with Thor’s constantly bulking arms. It was getting ridiculous, wasn’t it? And Thor knew that, had been thinking forward to in a year when his own house wouldn’t be able to contain them signing his — SpaceA’s but same difference — name on this place.

If Thor had lifted any of the industrial, ten-thousand-ton machinery his fingers teased at, it would’ve been an eye-roll — and a deep, “fuck me” clench — at the humblebrag of it, not a surprise. And that wasn’t Loki speaking only for himself. Bruce had a scoff and finger-wag in his chino pocket ready for Thor for setting a poor example for the fanatic-employees. Math was attainable. Muscles, not so much.

Loki had a personal testimony to that.

Thor could’ve backed it up, gulping Loki’s upper arm down in one hand to tow him away from the microprocessor grandfathers to Skynet. “You already have some back home.”

“But you can never get your hands on enough supercomputers. You know all about the allures of excess.”

Thor shielded himself from the elevator’s passersby with Loki, leaving Bruce to fend for himself when he beat the closing doors. “And how do I know that?”

Bruce was looking up at the metal smudged reflections of their heads because you couldn’t be left out if you weren’t in in the first place.

“Dr. B, need I elaborate on common knowledge?”

“Hm? Sorry, I really wasn’t paying attention.”

“You weren’t missing anything,” said Thor.

Bruce’s eyes straying Loki’s way begged to differ, discreetly on him when Thor was staring silent laughter through an overenthusiastic intern or getting lost in the hazy, sparkling contentment of a dream almost come true. 

Thor finally ditched them for a quickie — satellites just got Thor in the mood — with the Director of Telecommunications, vowing that dinner was next. As easy as it would’ve been to think otherwise, “Don’t stray too far” belonged to Loki and Loki only.

Did that count if Loki strayed for coffee?

Tea did all the convincing to Bruce. Loki was the messenger, likewise a madame for Thor’s coffee-flavored version of hate sex, the ironic twisty mustache in skinny jeans brewed artisan espresso-coffee blend that he’d use that begrudging mumble on admitting that it wasn’t “half-bad” while lovingly sipping. It was more than he’d have for Loki.

Bruce had a “thank you” when Loki handed him a measly napkin. Only if Mars was at the bottom of the cup scribbled “Thomas” would have had one of those.

Loki’s turn for the door was eighty-sixed by the suddenly immovable force of his right arm.

Bruce’s hand had the blame. “Let’s stay, have a seat.”

And tack on the charge of “too long” to the “too far”? Bruce didn’t need to supervise Loki to the table. Loki was metaphorically bolted and bound to that chair, however contrived it being a “refashioned” keg was, in the shop’s corner the moment Bruce said it.

Bruce’s eyes fixated on Loki like they hadn’t properly been able to, his glasses favoring Dahmer without the pinch of a smile at their corners. Well, then, hipster tea wasn’t as good as their coffee.

Loki’s shoe bumped Bruce’s. His shoe was sliding back courtesies of Bruce’s shoe shoving back his shin like Loki’d scuffed Bruce’s incognito luxury sneakers.

Shit. That would bruise.

Bruce had no apologies. If the tea were steeped in dirty dishwater, there’d be no excuse for that spine-freezing stare. “Thor felt the need to tell me that you were off-limits. For some reason, he had the idea that I would — that there was the possibility of something happening between you and me.” His fingers flinched like the pronouns weren’t clear. “Now, I know that’s not true. Me, I’m some fun. An ego-boost —”

“My ego doesn’t need any boost. Now, yours on the other hand —”

“I don’t need your pity.” Bruce wasn’t yelling, no, but he might as well have been, shook with his words. “Trust me. I get that next to Thor I seem a bit pathetic, but guess what? Everyone does. Hell, there’s a picture of him and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and guess who looks like the action movie star? Not Arnie. I am not hurting for anything, least of all companionship. And if I wanted paid company, I wouldn’t fight with Thor over it.” 

“Ouch. Here, I thought we were forming a friendship.”

“As frequently as Thor likes to forget, at the end of the day, you’re an employee of SpaceA.” Technically, yes, but also, no. “That makes me your boss too. I don’t mind being friendly, but there’s a line I’m not crossing.”

The “and you won’t cross either” could’ve been in prison tattoo lettering over Bruce’s caveman-straight brow furrow. 

"I know. I know it's tempting to take advantage of Thor's blatant interest in you—"

"How can you take advantage of a healthy adult?"

"But there's no way this can end well” was not an rebuttal or meant as one either. “I've known Thor for the better half of 20 years, and — he's not perfect. Nobody is. But Thor has a tendency to become fixated on things. First, it was space travel. Then, it was electric energy. We all see how that turned out. I know first-hand.”

Right, right, Lorelei, the bogeyman and cautionary tale of why Thor shouldn’t have been let off his leash.

"This ends one of two ways, Thor loses all interest in you, and you feel left out in the cold like the ones that came before you. One second, he was saying they were the one, the next he was waiting for them to walk because he didn't feel like putting the time into ending things.” Operative word “things.” The only thing between Thor and Loki was nothing except an employment contract that, might Loki add, only implicitly outlined Bruce’s role in the equation.

But Bruce was embracing that role with open arms. “Or if that doesn't happen” — which it would not because they weren’t together — “you realize that the cookie cutter image of Thor they put out there in the media doesn't match up with the real human being he is, and you want out. But Thor doesn't let go because that's not him. Fortunately, that hasn't happened yet, but I saw what happens when someone tries to keep Thor from what he wants. There are people out there that could've been here, but they got in Thor's way, and when you do that, he annihilates you."

Through his teeth, Loki said, "Very scary speech."

"And it won't touch the reality. You're hard-headed. Anyone who willingly goes on after undergrad is. But take a second to sit down and run through the tests yourself. Don't take my word for it. Think."

Because he hadn’t done that so far? He meant think smaller scale, think three-starred dinner in Milan on special occasions, not indulgences that happened to coincidentally scratch Thor’s itch. Bruce didn’t need that tiger out of the cage again, a Thor motivated by someone else beside himself. And Loki wasn’t just mile-deep cleavage and red lipstick. No, Loki was a threat to the predictive model Bruce had constructed of Thor the past 20-odd years.

All billionaires took it as a personal offense when the world didn’t go their way. That Loki could safely conclude. 

“I appreciate what you’ve done for Thor, but don’t make me have to be the bad guy because I have to be the rational one here. I don’t like being the bad guy. And it might be hard to believe it, but.” And the pause here pulled sweat under Loki’s collar at the spike in the temperature. “I’m surprisingly pretty good at it.”

A billion dollars was a lot of possibility. Tens of billions of dollars?

Loki would be Bruce’s fucking Sim.

He nodded like Thor hadn’t wallowed in his dirty bath water last night. “Understood, doctor.”

“Like I told Thor, someone who values themselves as much as you do isn’t gonna put themselves in jeopardy over feelings. It’s better to nip this in a bud before anyone gets hurt.” Or blows any loads but Bruce was months too late for that. “You should head back. Thor will be looking for you.”

Thor would be looking for them both, but Bruce’s humility didn’t cover another instance of Bruce explaining, lying, that they didn’t have the hots for Loki in common too. Because unlike Thor, contrary to what Bruce was deluding himself with, Bruce knew he wouldn’t have been able to resist should push and come to shove.

With an ache on his shin that was going to bloom into one hell of bruise, Loki let Bruce finish his tea and come down from his power fantasy in peace. All of that pent-up rage of seeing Thor have it all, cum receptacle for an assistant included, would’ve fueled Bruce’s scorched earth campaign to destroy Loki’s life.

Bruce would’ve been damned to have to lower himself to admitting that it hurt to be lower on the totem pole than Thor. That was for the black book model-comma-escort that showed up in furs to his house when they got back to LA later, the paid companion that he’d console himself wasn’t shared with/loaned from Thor like everything else.

Those shoulders in gray about to turn a corner on the floor below the crossway, Loki called Thor’s name at them.

Thor looked up and without regard for Bruce or any passed staff hoping for a meet-and-greet, he met Loki at the bottom of the staircase because his “Where were you?” couldn’t wait. 

The coffee told Thor where.

Thor’s jaw and neck muscles awakened underneath the golf-ready stubble, a middle finger to professionalism and line-toeing. If the deity wanted Loki to spunk his sheets, that was between them two. “Where’s Banner?”

“I — he mentioned going to his office.”

“I’ll take that as sign he doesn’t want to come to dinner. I’ll see him later anyway.”

“He won’t be able to resist pillow talk after today.”

Thor’s eyes skimmed over him. “Did you run here? Seems like you’re catching your breath.”

“It looked to be threatening to rain, and you know how Dr. B is with not ‘exploiting’ the car service.”

“Stupid.”

“Well, he’s my boss. He makes the rules.”

“No, I’m your boss.” Ergo, there was nothing out of the ordinary in Loki keeping eye contact to as necessary with Bruce and not subjecting himself to Bruce thinking himself any less of an asshole than Thor over blueprints but retiring to bed instead.

Loki placed a reminder for himself in May of two years from now to leave an especially scathing anonymous review on every employer website possible for Dr. Banner. Perhaps, he would plant some seeds of buy-outs and peaceful pushing out of the company in Thor.

Bruce obviously didn’t have Thor’s best interests in mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aye, Thor, bro, probably not a good idea to threaten your bestie/business partner especially when dude's got hangups about certain boss-worker relationships, but that's just me.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's words and phrases of interest (maybe?)  
> wasabi peas - hot, dried peas with a nut-like crunch  
> Atlas - Greek god/titan who legit had to carry earth on his shoulders  
> Ben Wa balls - balls to put into your orifices for recreation, also used for kegels  
> cat burglar - thieves that climb like cats up to break in, connotation of being nimble

In the bitter, billionaire mind of Dr. Bruce Banner, Loki was a damned gnat he’d flick off and go back to huffing the fumes of Thor’s perpetual ambition, but the joke was on him. Loki was a tick. 

A tick that didn’t have billions of dollars but had this hand that could pityingly pat the head of the firewall around Bruce Banner’s castle in the SpaceA network — the other hand on Wasabi pea duty because waltzing himself into Bruce Banner’s devices was a one-handed job for him. Bruce had inventoried Loki’s weaknesses and strengths to be on the lookout for just cause. A “See, Thor, I was defending myself.”

Loki’s advanced degrees weren’t in law, but self-defense pleas fell flat when there was material evidence on not only the so-called revenger’s devices but the server space allocated to SpaceA’s HR department. A visit to SpaceA’s Anonymous HR tip line would coincide with the submitted message whispering that the captain of this spaceship was going below deck with his new executive assistant, an incident at the new SpaceA base in Washington had led the concerned staffer to believe.

Threats — like litigious secretaries — to their fearless leader were taken particularly seriously by a bright and early summons to HR in Loki’s inbox.

In one corporate second, how great was it to working at SpaceA jumped to “we’re not asking if you’re fucking Thor, but just to be clear, you’re not fucking Thor, are you?”

No, Loki wasn’t fucking Thor. Thor was his boss, who definitely wasn’t paying Loki’s rent, poaching in his bathwater, and sweet dreaming in Loki’s dried cum. Of course not, they agreed. How absurd. Their fearsome leader could do not wrong, but they just wanted to know that he was “feeling” like he and Thor had a “comfortable, professional relationship.”

He and HR had a different definition of that. Because they’d have begged to differ that comfortable covered Thor’s aggressive camping at his desk because he’d not been there on the dot to read Thor his day. 

Thor’s irritated biceps in pewter asked, “Where were you?”

“I just came from an interesting trip to HR. It seems someone credible suggested that… untoward things are happening between us.”

You had to love those scoffs of disbelief. “Who?”

“I don’t know. Unmasking anonymous tips defeats the purpose of the system.”

“Stupid system.”

“Yes, it does leave room for bad actors. Probably an employee disgruntled that you didn’t fall in love with them during the tour near Seattle because that seems to be the reference frame. There is no person that has seen us interact and thinks that it’s nothing but professional, no one impartial.”

The pause could’ve been missed by the naked eye, but Loki’s wore a suit of armor. “Hm.”

“I’ll be in your office in a few seconds.”

Thor spared a few brain cells not replaying his back-off chat with Bruce to nod. Considering if one of his oldest friends and most trusted business partner had stealthily snitched to HR in retaliation had to battle against Thor’s two-decade-strong trust that Bruce would never ever do such a thing.

But Thor would be thinking, well, what if he had?

Bruce didn’t even know it. 

#

Thor had a check-up with the local lads at Leiptr’s Tønsberg facility that detoxed Loki of the grating, flat sound of American English. Admiration in his personal bubble or at a reasonable distance, sunlight hot to the touch or ice-cold, Thor thrived all the same.

Thomas Edison stayed back in the States as Thor graced his hyper-sustainable, half-glass stack of gray boxes with a visit he brought Loki along for. “There are guest bedrooms,” he said, offering his thick wool coat to the couch because whether here or in California, Thor didn’t fit in any boxes, however environmentally friendly they were. Or genuinely like having Loki around as his intense focus on the consuming task of getting water reminded him. “My bedroom’s down the hall and straight ahead.”

With a view of the sea superior to one of any Malibu beachfront. 

The room he chose had it from a lower angle, the one of the sea and of the infinity pool a few days and ice storms away from becoming an ice rink. The suites always had pools, hot tubs, all the waterworks, but they didn’t have the bite of November in Norway if you went down to one layer, forbid none like Loki had all the plans in the world to after Atlas’ing the majority of conversation at dinner because Thor sure as hell was not a quiet listener, not for Loki.

He let himself soak like those people without a care in the world. The Thors.

Before his skin could get any ideas about pruning permanently, he climbed himself out onto the heated tiles circling it.

That feeling of being watched tapped his shoulder, suggested he focus out the corner of his eye, and that part of his brain evolved for detecting possible murderers lit up New Year’s Eve at the humanoid-shaped skin.

An amount of skin that Loki’s heart emitted an “!” at.

On the balcony to his room, Thor was, in fact, wearing a robe. A very well-made white, terrycloth robe that would keep him warm in this weather (but that — that. “Was it an arm? Was it a leg?” No, it was a Cock. Great warriors would’ve pilgrimaged through desert and over mountain and across seas to lay their swords before it and pray to it for strength. They’d thank it for harvests of cum and ask for their enemies to be crushed by the mighty hand that tended to it in wait for the hole worthy of containing its full scale, the organ-rearranging girth and length of it.)

Loki’s mind decided that a cheeky, innocent wave was all it could manage. He had more pressing concerns than showing how unaffected he was by Thor’s monstrosity, like, not showing he was literally affected by it. His arse had been slapped and pinched to perkiness by genes and cardio for this moment where he could present it to Thor to go retrieve his towel from a chair without completing the mutual dick flash.

“Good night,” Thor called.

Loki pretended to not hear it and went inside to shower in icicles and stare in shock as it towered over him in his memory in all its deep rose glory. He tossed and turned away from it protruding behind his eyelids till the post-orgasm low pulled him under, stared at the afterimage of it in the beams of rogue sunrise above him, the same deep pink in places. He couldn’t be sure he’d actually seen it, that it hadn’t been a fever dream. He couldn’t have seen it. Of course, not. Deities were good to Thor but not that good to gift him that pendulous wonder that once seen could not be unseen even in the confines of plaid pajama pants.

“Enjoy your swim last night?”

Thor couldn’t not have had a colossal cock. Why was Loki acting surprised? He’d seen Thor’s bulges. This was confirmation, confirmation that Loki could survive. He simply had a more vivid inspiration.

Loki forked some fruit onto his plate and told Thor, “It was amazing.” 

“I have that pool back in LA. You should use it sometime.”

Loki “mhm”d on a piece of Japanese melon and pictured cucumbers and zucchinis and eggplants, none the wiser what Thor was looking for in him over his coffee.

#

Milan turned a stop for a few button-down shirts into enough bags that the group planning on board his elevator car had to wait for the next one.

His arm workout for the year ended at the suitcase that’d have to be remodeled to fit the new arrivals.

Thor’s closed bedroom door prepared Loki for Thor brightening the doorway. “Did a lot of shopping.” He, hands in pockets, cock barely tamed, helped himself to a closer look at the boutique bags that’d be quantum chemistry to him. “What did you get?”

“Nothing interesting.” Loki demonstrated that with the Chelsea ankle boots he withdrew from their box, a dark green that would be black from afar and surprise the lucky that got close. “How was your call with the Prime Minister?”

“It went fine.” Knelt in front of the most nondescript bag, Thor’s hands had discovered black lace. For the intrusion, Loki didn’t stop him from mining out the equally flimsy but instead satin or velvet or below the knee robes and all vexing to Thor. 

“What can I say? Robes suit me.”

After letting them slither back into the bag in peace, Thor, again, concurred, noted appreciatively Loki in the matte black knee-length one he gave Thor the rundown of tomorrow morning’s vineyard-bound meeting with the Signore Fiat. It was the least that Loki could pay as a tribute to the Great Veiny God that’d been divining him with fingertip-numbing orgasms daily on memory alone.

Thor was, in the purest sense, an incubus. Loki’d been tarred devil-worshipper once by one of those pesky Christians he’d done MIT with, and like he’d willingly and vocally embraced it then, he was on his hands and knees basking in the fuck-hued light Thor gave off.

Thor vacillating between blankly staring at Loki’s crazy and huffing him with an adding zing of knowing that was touching him sucked far less in a free-fall of eternal horniness. Active horniness, not that passive, ready for it should the opportunity have presented itself horniness of pre-Exposure. At any given moment, “Shut the fuck up and fuck me” was idling, and it was actually very empowering.

Fuck no if he’d have said it, but he could have.

#

In tribute to Thor’s Cock, Ben Wa balls kept his hole amused like Thor would and could never — though if he had, he would’ve. Not that he would’ve — a fullness to entertain himself copy-pasting from the Leiptr A4’s operating manual for an enterprising U.S. Senator fancying themselves magnanimous by personally emailing Thor (via Loki) for info Google could’ve explained. He happily played glorified legal pad for Thor to wonder aloud onto while switching from meeting to meeting and was happily paid to edge himself all damned day long.

Thor’s suspicious side-eyes acting on behalf of his bloodhound nose were bonuses.

Shuffling paper Loki’d wisely not bothered ordering on his desk, Thor asked, “Are you in heat?” 

“No, I can say definitively that I’m not.”

“Well, you smell like you are,” said Thor, frustrated. Frustrated wouldn’t stop being a bold shade of sexy on him, would it? Frustrated dropped Thor into his chair. “All week, it’s only gotten more intense. It’s distracting.” 

“Are you accusing me of smelling horny?”

Hear the single syllable almost-laugh from Thor’s chest. “If the shoe fits. What happened to your little friend? The blond one. Professor—”

“Dr. Blake.”

“Yeah. That one. What? Are you… taking it slow? After you already brought him back to your place the first time you met him?” Ignoring that it fizzled to nothing due to Thor being there.

“I know that with how straightforward and successful your sensual endeavors are that it must get boring, but mine aren’t an untapped supply of entertainment.”

“I would’ve thought he’d like the robes. Too out there for him?”

“Don’t worry, Mr. Odinson. I’m not showing your robes to anyone else.”

Thor nodded ludicrously sagely. “But you are seeing him.”

“I will be outside waiting for us to leave for your meeting in five minutes.”

Thor needed five centuries to stop watching Loki like he’d been committing bank robberies the last few nights.

#

Considering that the only key to the currently opening front door was in his possession, other than that of the management company who’d not given him 24-hour notice, the two-second heart attack was justified.

Then “rent” pin-balled into “Thor,” completing the picture of who Loki should’ve expected when the door opened.

Thor had a very presumptuous weekender in hand and intentions of leaving not in the other.

Glass of wine firmly in hand, knee free from the slit in his robe, the black velvet one, Loki let himself be as unimpressed as he could be. “Did you lose your phone?”

“No.” The Stone Age stick up Thor’s ass did not read the subtext. “What? Interrupting your plans?”

“You’ve seen it yourself. I’m flexible.”

Thor knew Loki’s apartment. He did pay the rent, probably thought of it as his to come in, now that it was his, taking off his shoes, hanging up his jackets, suit and eggplant purple — which you couldn’t tell Loki that wasn’t deliberate by Thor’s ego — overcoat, and asking Loki as he, worryingly, started untucking his shirt, “Can you get me some water?”

When he turned from the filter with water, Thor grabbed it before Loki could accidentally pour it on him again, his hot salami fingers bullying their way into the spaces between Loki’s. Never a thank you. The maniac then turned and did not head for the front door, no, but where else but for Loki’s bedroom?

The agony of Thor’s buttons being pulled rather than peeled apart was a gentle reminder that Thor, his boss, was getting undressed in his bedroom. A dream come true but unfortunately not an everyday reality.

“You’re not drunk,” Loki pointed out because they both needed to hear that.

Feast on the explosion of skin, a sun-soaked canvas stretched across the frame of an excess of muscle, an argument against any accusations of Thor having humility because no one humble could’ve had all of that, and lack of humility was a gateway for megalomania.

“I’m not,” said Thor finally, removing his pants too easily for how they liked to mimic the skin, furry, brass blond skin underneath. “It was easier to sleep here instead of going all the way home.”

Nice try Thor’s Cock print, swaying hypnotically — heavily, burdened with length and girth — in Thor’s satin silver boxers, but for one, SpaceA HQ was a calm in the eye of the LAX storm, 50 minutes, give or definitely take 15 with Thor’s driving, from Thor’s house, an equal travel time from there to Loki’s. And two, those legends down in Astrophysics hadn’t cracked the wormhole code for Thor to have magically reached through in his office to pack a weekender in his home closet.

“But you went home,” said Loki.

“Only for a few minutes.” Right, that made sense. Sure. “What’s the problem? Expecting company?”

“I already had the company I needed: me, myself, and I.”

“You act like I’ve never stayed over.”

“When you were drunk.”

“Which is why it’s better now. I’ve heard I’m better company sober.”

“You’ve heard that?”

Thor still hadn’t realized his “very funny” looks only torqued Loki harder.

“Since you’ve tasked me with relaxing you on this Friday night I allegedly had off, let’s get that taken care of.” Showing Thor what undoubtedly amounted to an oversized condom wrapper in Thor’s frame of reference despite Loki IDing it as a sheet mask, Loki told Thor to sit on the bed.

Thor did, pushed down by his skepticism and its buddy curiosity. He didn’t “yes” to Loki’s instruction to push the hair loose from his bun behind his ears and to not move his face, but let Loki tuck those cotton soft hairs back and stayed still as he joined the Hannibal Lecter fan club.

“You’ve never looked better,” said Loki.

Thor now knew what Loki felt like looking in the mirror as colorless as he was. That sufficed for the walk in Loki’s shoes, the party pooper 86ing any ideas of deep conditioning his hair because “I don’t let anyone touch my hair but my mother.” Today Loki learned that Thor had in common with five-year-olds the world over that his mother cut his hair, which was absolutely adorable, and a sound decision as Loki and the fact that he’d been the only one to touch his own hair since he could be trusted with scissors would’ve testified to.

For that solidarity, Loki did not kick Thor out when he said, “Wow, you’re boring.” Why was Loki boring? “You’re seriously not spending the night reading academic papers” was Thor’s soap bubble-thin reasoning.

“This is the state of the art.”

“Uh-huh.” Thor’s flashbacks from being doused sunk him down onto the couch instead of the armchair. “Read a normal book. Or watch a movie. TV. I’ve caught you watching TV at the office. Now, you should actually be watching it.” 

“In the kitchen during my lunch break.”

“In the office.”

“Regardless, I don’t need moving pictures to stay stimulated.” The journal article picked up right where it left off on Loki’s tablet as he settled on the bit of couch Thor hadn’t been able to claim.

“Read it out loud to me.”

“What?”

Thor repeated himself verbatim. “Let’s hear what’s so interesting.”

“It’s all in chemistry jargon.”

“Then, I guess you’ll need to translate. You do it for me all the time.”

Loki sucked his teeth, scrolling back to the article start to provide Thor the context that he’d’ve been stopping Loki for anyway. “‘Boosting Hot Electrons in Hetero-superstructures for Plasmon-Enhanced Catalysis,’” he recited, and he main-lined the “boring” of chemistry straight past Thor’s blood-brain barrier, careful to not touch Thor’s precious hair penetrating his mind with the majesty of chemistry.

Thor’s eyelashes were flush to one another, no blue in sight, a victory flag for Loki. Loki wasn’t boring. He was too exciting for Thor, so exciting that Thor had to forfeit by sleeping.

The sleepy rise and fall of Thor’s tiny Smarties pink nipples continued without Loki’s voice. His back would fire Loki in the morning in that position, but it wouldn’t kill Thor, a little bit of soreness, if Loki had a shower.

As he dried his hair, the light on the bed led him over to Thor’s phone.

Thor’s comatose thumb on the back of the couch unlocked it, but Thor comatose eyes couldn’t supervise that Loki only cleaned out his top drawer of dozens of missed/ignored calls, texts, emails, and alerts from the smartwatch Thor wore on his morning jogs and gym runs. In addition to surveying the discussions with Leiptr’s executive board of his besties who in passing referred to Thor’s “Sexy Secretary” in their discussions about footie and government ineptitude like it was established lore from the phone calls Loki blocked out after the third “buddy” and with Forbes’ other Richest.

Thor had nightmares of angry texts to best friends, of Loki leaking the dick pics on deck (of which there were disappointingly none), for the orgasmic lottery winners he’d have met in clubs on Thursday nights like these like he had his orgy partners, not of Loki holding the camera over him, half-sat up, eyelids the only skin visible through the mask, and posting the picture to the Instagram and Twitters Thor barely used captioned “Dreaming of space #beautysleep.”

Loki’d barely pressed post before Thor’s PR’s wall of thumbs-ups and “Thank you! Love the post!” pinged Thor’s messages.

Yes, Loki was so untrustworthy, taking pictures of Thor sleeping and looking better in a face mask than 99.99% of people did without one. Even Thor wouldn’t be able to side-step that one.

Thor’s phone on the charger, unlike Thor, who would’ve forgotten till Loki walked into Thor’s office tomorrow to him plugging it into the power pack glowering at his dead phone, Loki cat burglared himself over Thor, one foot leveraged in the couch’s back cushions, the other on the ground, daily yoga steadying him, and peeled the mask from Thor’s forehead. Thor’s shiny, sunny skin returned, the pensive wrinkles between his eyebrows MIA and the ones at the corners of his eyes down in number. Below his cheekbones, his empty pores filled in with short bronze hair, the iconic beard. It tickled at Loki’s knuckles.

“That feels good” drifted out of Thor as a rumble.

Loki quickly pulled the rest of the mask off. “It’s good you’re awake. I don’t think I could manage to carry you to bed. Not safely.”

Thor’s pupils shrunk at the majesty of that Atlantic blue. “Hm, you showered.”

“I would’ve invited you, but you seemed comfortable.” Loki managed to not give in to the temptation to brace himself on Thor’s chest and give Thor any odd ideas, suspicious ideas. He was just a man professionally hosting his boss in his home. 

To not have to fight for space for himself, he reclaimed his side of the bed for Thor to have to accommodate after his bedtime routine. He gave Thor the light to get himself back into the bedroom, but after that, Thor was left to his, at this point, perfect mental map, which did not warrant the annoyed “Could’ve waited” from Thor to find his way to the bed.

Thor’s shadow had pancaking weight climbing over Loki.

“Good night,” said Loki.

“Night.”

“Good morning” was the arm tightening around his rib cage as Thor’s orgasm groaned into Loki’s spine, Thor’s knuckles knocking on Loki’s tail bone while his fist held the great unseen force of his Cock. When Thor left the bed for the bathroom, he left behind one speck of white on the band of Loki’s boxers that, licked from Loki’s fingertip, bloomed like liquid dopamine on his tongue. Thor’s shower gave Loki the time to roll over into the ultra-warm spot that reeked of Thor and copycat him.

A heart attack almost knocked Thor down when he saw Loki awake.

“Who needs an alarm when they have you leaving the bed?” was Loki throwing Thor a bone, one that Thor bit his minty fresh teeth into and said, “You were going to be waking up soon anyway.”

No, cooking breakfast did not have the air of a one-night stand because Loki had never ever cooked breakfast for a one-nighter, and you couldn’t tell him that Thor stuck around afterward for French toast and half the carton of eggs Thor expressly requested for his. 

And he had definitely never told them that he’d get them a copy of his grocery list to stock up for “when” he’d stay over. “I mean, who the hell drinks medium roast?”

When a SpaceA acolyte in the elevator commented that he’d be trying out a face mask himself to Thor, Thor found no explanation from Loki. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapters start getting a bit, uh, long after this I realize looking at my word counts. Whoops


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the later update. Real life decided to get in the way.
> 
> ETA glossary:  
> Tinseltown - nickname for Hollywood which is in LA  
> Pocket hockey - playing with your dick in your pocket  
> pied-a-terre - smaller home away from home usually in a city  
> Viagra - male enhancement and blood pressure drug   
> F1 - a motorsport you should be watching (Lewis Hamilton let's go)  
> WCC - world constructor championships, F1 awards the teams with the most points at season end win

“I need a walk” after the meeting about France’s electric-fueled future turned into wine-tasting and autofellating sounded good to Loki.

“I hate this city,” said Thor, chancing the blinking “stop walking” and risking Loki’s life across the green-lit street in the process.

“Oh, I love it.”

“Of course, you do.”

Paris had that aggressively warm-orange European feel after sunset that Loki the catwalk escapee agreed with, as with all places in existence and all hues of light supporting Thor in his mission to crumple the self esteems, yes, even of the proudest baguette-toting Parisian. He was egalitarian though, for all the egos annihilated, an equal share of them glitter-misted by that God they passed on the street that made eyes with them or so they’d like to believe.

The five prongs of heat on Loki’s shoulder blade traced back to the arm in his periphery, but the twitch of his cock could’ve told him who. To what did Loki owe the pleasure? Thor pushing him toward one specific doorway in the stream of them to luxury boutiques.

The twinkle and shine in the cases could’ve blinded the sun.

Thor said, “Hi,” in English, a statement to the sophisticates manning the store that had them looking sideways at one another. Thor was too focused on looking over the rings and cuff links watches to notice, not that he would’ve cared. This was Thor. “I’m looking for a watch,” he said. Kind of like this,” he said, his big, inelegant hands gesturing toward a watch inset in a wall case that meant very important.

Thor’s suit signaled money, lots of money, but Thor’s… Thor-ness contradicted that loudly. 

Whether to entertain him or not hilariously conflicted them.

They sunk so low as to speak English, but they were not expecting sales on any of the watches that they half-heartedly briefed Thor on. It didn’t get any better than Thor killing their souls fingering a sleek black wristwatch in the tray. He pointed at the gold and black beauty in another tray. “That’s it.”

“Monsieur, we can—”

Those inspection gloves were a construct for those that didn’t have Thor’s consecrated hands.

“Here,” Thor was saying, grabbing Loki’s forearm.

Now, this made sense. The overdue post-stealth-wank thank you.

Thor’s fingers were firm but somehow gentle fastening the watch closed at the veins he had to think were creepily visible through Loki’s inner wrist. But veins were no more in the presence of the fine gold chainmail bracelet and its black, black diamond-sprinkled, centerpiece. 

Loki’s arm glinting through the halls of the bottom-of-the-barrel digital watches, the envy of them all, the sour apple of the dear leader’s eye. He casually did the switch from walking pose to hair tuck, which Thor pretended not to be impressed with, but the shift in Thor’s arm cross said it all.

“We’ll get this one,” Thor told the attendants.

Thor’s bifold came out of his jacket’s inner pocket and the black card out of that, the sum total of Thor’s reaction to the six digits the register rung up.

“I don’t know if this qualifies as a passive-aggressive or active aggressive way of telling me you didn’t like my watch.”

“This one fits you better.” Thor checked his own massive watch. “Sleek, sophisticated, sexy. Good one to start a solid collection.”

While Thor soaked off dinner in Loki’s bathwater, Loki did a Thor in Thor’s sheets with only the watch on to the loop of Thor saying “sexy.”

#

“Where are you going?” asked the reason why Loki’s magnetic north remained Thor’s office.

Loki, calmly, blocked Thor’s view of his ass with his jacket. “I have Spin. You don’t have any obligations until 6:00.”

“I didn’t ask you that.” One atonement watch and Thor comfortable slipped back into his asshole hat. Typical. “Let me grab my stuff. I have that report I’m supposed to be reading I can take care of.”

“It’s a closed session. You can’t just drop in to observe.” 

Closed? That was not a word that translated to Billionairese. Not that it was a problem when the world, front-desk attendant included, happily back bent over for him who she was such, like, a massive fan of.

Anyone else would’ve felt self-conscious about hunkering down on a locker room bench with no obvious intentions of changing, but Thor couldn’t have looked less anti-bothered about the back of his head being passively mooned while his suit, jacket, of course, purposefully forgotten at the office, made nary a move off him. “I didn’t take you to be locker room shy.”

Loki undid his shirt cuffs. “You don’t need to rush me.” He winked. “Me getting half-naked is inevitable.”

It would’ve killed Thor to learn to deny every once in a while. And to pretend not to stare too at this closer view of the ass that yoga and spin built. To the Tinseltownies, they might’ve been coworkers or friends with benefits, but boss and assistant were definitely one Google search away. A creepshot of Thor trying to figure out how someone as unimpressively built as Loki could smell like he did would’ve made scandal-chasing lawyer and Boeing executive alike human fireworks.

Luckily for Thor, his presence alone sufficed to do that for the others unmoved by the invasion of their spin space by a non-spandexed stranger. Yes, stranger despite their chummy, buddy-buddy yuk-yukking they gathered around Thor for, someone unashamedly dropping that they’d been at a private fundraiser with Thor like not having their face remembered wasn’t more pathetic than having never met him at all.

Not that that could ever be Loki. After cutting the meet-and-greet short, Thor made sure to pointedly place himself in the chair that singed his stare into Loki’s back. Nothing new to Loki but the angle. Loki wasn’t typing emails for Thor to seethe over the error-freeness of, but was it much different to Thor, Loki cutting through imaginary asshole-filled cars like it was what he was born to do, unlike serving Thor like Thor thought? Blocking out the melodramatic panting and Thor’s obnoxious page-turning with teeth-rotting Pop got Loki in perfect form for Thor immunity.

His personal best sprinted by. Annoying Thor was an Adrenaline analog.

Straddling the bike saddle for the sake of his gently numb ass, Loki’s bearings scattered out of the way of the jolt to the genitals Loki’s circulation had forgotten.

Thor’s scent could’ve been smelling salts.

A towel draped itself around Loki’s neck.

Thor the Towel Fairy came around for the thank you that Loki dodged giving by conveniently putting the towel over his mouth. Thor’s dazed eyes said he did not mind. Not at all. “You’re a sweater.”

Could Thor have been more blatant?

Loki rolled his eyes as he stood, no worries about his weak legs dropping him to the ground with Thor reaching out a hand to “steady” him/steal the sweat from Loki’s shirt sleeve. “How did your report reading go?”

“I got through a few pages.” Thor’s hand slipped up his arm, slipped up to between his shoulder blades, a new favorite spot of Thor’s, and Loki didn’t need to worry about reaching the locker room since along with his rambling about the innovation down in SpaceA’s R&D department he’d gotten from the ten or so pages he’d read out of the hundred, Thor had that covered.

“We’ll go back to my house. You’ll shower there,” Thor decided, rinsing away any pesky ideas of Loki stealing this adrenaline shot to productivity and penis.

Cock.

Enough Cock to feed the world — chicken that was, what they, Thor in his suit and Loki in his drying sweat, ordered at the bistro he requested because if anyone was in any position to make requests, it was the one selflessly suffocating their sweaty hard-on in compression shorts so Thor could finish his report later.

Loki handed off the call to the anxiety from Aeronautics with sights on a highway overpass if they disappointed Thor to the man himself to enjoy his grilled chicken as Thor, who was amused in the vaguest way, talked them down. Thor was aware of the effect he had on people, on his workers/cult members, even on Bruce, and absolutely on the waiter that had topped Thor’s coffee off so often that it was full again before Thor set it back down.

Yet another life saved, Thor nodded at Loki re-upping his plate. "I used to wonder where it all goes."

"Until you what? Caught a glimpse of me in just my undies?"

Thor's throat one of these days would reveal how it made fucking swallowing hot. He said in his deadest pan, "To your ego."

"Like I said."

Loki had a creeping suspicion that the lion's share of Thor's wealth had been won in underground poker because Thor could sustain the hell out of a spine-warming stare. Even when he collected the towel he’d expropriated from the studio from Loki’s gym bag.

His Shamelessness Thor could not relate to the extra sauce of triumph of Thor being none the wiser when retrieving Thor’s sweat-steeped compression shorts from his morning workout. Late-night snack secure in his bag, Loki smiled his “see you tomorrow” at Thor, the front door holder.

Loki was amassing quite the collection of Thor’s various compression shorts, boxers, and sweaty Leiptr t-shirts in the back of his closet.

#

“A habitual couch crasher _,_ ” in the words of the _New Yorker_ _’s_ profile, Thor’s willingness to pay Loki’s rent funnily hadn’t applied to any pied-à-terre near Leiptr’s home base in Silicon Valley. Therefore, Thomas Edison reserved a suite at a hotel five minutes from the couch Thor would’ve slept on pre-Loki when all-nighters came after the day trips because breathing down necks wasn’t effective leadership.

But alas, even the chosen at Leiptr didn’t have Lokis and sometimes needed Thor to shove his sleeves up and morale all over the place. For that, no shadowing by Loki was needed. The afterglow of Loki could carry Thor through the evening.

On Thor’s behalf, Loki compensated for that derailed night of self-care like the watch couldn’t by taking room service up on that offer of a mani-pedi and massage. Wasting away on a couch phone-calling and email-replying equaled doing that but lying on a massage bench getting c-suite crybabying mushed out of him.

The let-down to the supplier CEO’s romantic weekend getaway to secure Thor’s friendship, the hundred-million-dollar contract obviously a secondary priority of his, would’ve been harsher if Loki weren’t getting life’s burdens polished away from his toenails. 

He bounced the wording off of the nail grandmaster, one of the lone souls that’d never heard of any Thor Odinson. They did know “those strange quiet cars” of Thor’s polluting — or not — up the streets.

The email had only just left Loki’s custody when Thor returned from battle. If the one-sided evisceration of a dozen-dozen egos qualified as battle.

Loki did the introductions since Thor was too transfixed on the precision of the nail file on Loki’s toes.

Thor did manage “Nice to meet you.”

“Would you like one?” asked Loki, endorsing the fantastic work with a lift of the shining toes of the finished foot. “I bet you could use it.”

“No. You seem to have it covered for the both of us.” Yes, take care of the scent vessel Thor was saying. As a matter of fact, he had a seat to see to it personally, so personally that Loki totally accidentally slowly skimmed his toes from Thor’s knee cap down his shin lowering it down.

The gall of it didn’t break Thor’s semi-serious stare, but his hand slid into his pants pocket to, in dark black silhouette, wrestle a snake. An anaconda if you will. “Tell me the vibrator story.”

A pleasure, which the obvious snitch Erik Selvig hadn’t thought it’d be, and it would’ve been without the nirvana-inducing brush of the nail file’s blunt edge on his toes. As a reformed Silicon Valley frat boy, Thor could appreciate a good prank, and it’d been a good prank. At a talk in front of hundreds, going to dump out a box of flashbacks oh so nonchalant science superstar and having a bunch of the 90s’ best vibrators plopping out instead.

“I, fortunately, was there to come forward and give Selvig an actual flashlight for his demonstration, which I’d happened to coincidentally have on my person.”

“I’d have done the demo with the vibrators.”

“Exactly. You’d think Erik Selvig of all people would be familiar with them since he somehow managed to remain married for a few years.”

“Speaking as someone that owns a few vibrators, right?” The return on Thor’s pillage through his drawers never ended, did it?

“Unlike Erik, I don’t need them.” Not when merely being had Thor passively pocket hockeying. Loki’s matte black robe did double time silencing the influence of Thor’s absently moving hand. “A Hitachi Magic Wand” — which was the same in Norwegian as it was in English to the scandal of the pedicurist — “probably bought him half of his marriage.”

“It’s funny how much he hates you.”

“Isn’t it? He still clearly hasn’t caught on that’s what gives me my power.” Loki reclaimed the handiwork of the maestro knelt before him. After the compliments in English, he said to Thor, “Even you seem to be catching on.”

Thor “hm”d and threw in his own “good job.” 

As Loki hung back to adjust his hard-on while Thor gentlemanly went to grab the door for them, Thor’s newest convert murmured that Loki was “lucky” to “have” such an attractive man, and Loki didn’t correct them.

Bruce Banner and Erik Selvig could eat their hearts out.

#

Time zones were a mortal construct, and Thor’s Best Leiptr Executive Forever was not mortal or in the States.

As an immortal himself, Thor would’ve been roused by the divine chimes out of Loki’s hearing range to lift heavy things an eternity before Loki called an Uber to deliver the ASAP from Hogun to Thor who was, of course, not answering his phone.

Between the “sexy secretary” jokes, Thor could’ve slipped in Loki’s availability to them, so he didn’t beat the sunrise to Thor’s front doorstep. But Loki was a Swiss Army Knife, and he didn’t need Thor thinking Loki was anything but overqualified for the basics of assisting. 

Thor’s one-up to all the luxury gyms of the penthouses and boutique hotels sounded like a nightclub. Heavy Metal Thor embracing junk food, hump-bait music, and it was Thor — tap-out calves bursting on behalf of the silenced voices of his thighs and ass in his mesh shorts, back muscles pretending there wasn’t skin in the way like his Oxford shirts liked to.

The sound “boing” had been concocted for the short up and down of Thor's magnificent muscle tits. Thor was too hypnotized by them in his reflection to catch Loki between the blur of his skipping rope before he quietly crept out of the wall mirror’s range.

There was a moment that he thought he peed. But he did not pee. Oh, yes, his pants were wet though.

Underwear might’ve been a good choice.

Underwear or not, he could accidentally kickstart the exercise ball with clear aspirations of touching Thor.

The ball’s dream came true against one of Thor’s luscious calves, which ended Thor’s jump roping. Thor’s “what?” spontaneously combusted into “fuck,” eyes screwing shut tight while his hand braced the opposite side of his neck. 

Oops.

“Fuck,” repeated Thor as body catching up with his head, the sunrise taking its sweet time got overtaken by Thor’s now prettily-sitting tits and their pretty pink nipples, their audience of abs, glazed in sweet, sweet sweat.

All secondary to the strain in Thor’s neck of course.

“Surprise?” said Loki through the super fitting happy-go-lucky music, wading into the Soak Zone according to his pants. “Are you alright?”

“Fine” was all teeth. Thor, top intellect, tried turning his neck and the “ah!” learned him his lesson. For the next minute or so.

Preempting the next ouchie, Loki shooed Thor’s hand away to Vulcan Nerve Pinch some fresh and hot Thor meat, the 119th element on the periodic table. Loki tenderly convinced Thor’s metal to soften to where his fingertips weren’t being worn down at a microscopic level fighting against it, entertained by the tiny little blond hairs on Thor’s skin shining in the overhead lights, the ridiculously even bronzeness of the skin under it. 

He asked near Thor’s ear, “Better?” 

Thor was silent instead of admitting it.

“Anyway, I am here because Hogun said to call him as soon as possible. The news says nothing and neither do any of the Leiptr keywords anywhere on the internet, so it’s probably good news.”

“Hm.”

“Someone could use that massage.”

“‘The pain is part of the gain.’”

“What American action movie did you borrow that from?”

“There’s nothing wrong with American action movies.”

“Of course, not. They’re like Pop radio. Who doesn’t love the music equivalent of Skittles sometime?”

“It’s full of energy, of life. You wouldn’t understand.” 

The sound of him slapping one of Thor’s many back muscles was worse than it was — for Thor. Loki’s palm begged to differ.

Loki told Thor now rolling his head around his neck “fuck”-free, “And I call to the stand my Spin playlist. With how close you lurk to me sometimes, you’d think you’d hear the overflow of my earphones, and that’s with them being noise isolating.”

Thor’s ode to bottle service stopped, the exercise ball bouncing to one not far from where he’d thrown it. While his lats reminded Loki they did exist, Thor tagged Hogun back to hear the — what did Loki say? — good news that production was ahead of schedule over in Tampere.

An entire month. That never happened before what Loki couldn’t help but notice coincided with his arrival.

Loki was the non-FDA-and-HR-approved answer to coke and Viagra.

“No thanks to that killer assistant of yours.” Even a lemming from SpaceA’s rocket lunch team said it themselves over speakerphone.

After he scoffed all bass, Thor replied, “I’ve had worse.”

Unarguably yes, but not better.

#

Tony Stark’s compromise with the environment and Thor was the rocket on wheels – literally – he planned to break the land-speed record with.

Thor was the groom seeing his bride through the cathedral doors watching the cars swirl around the racetrack through the runaway strands of hair. He’d turned down the earmuffs because tinnitus only afflicted poors evidently. “I’ve been in machine shops my entire life,” he’d said. “If it was going to happen, it would’ve already.”

So said everyone ever who had ever gotten screwed over by bad habits as Loki had pointed out before securing his earmuffs. He’d been too adorable and pleased for Thor to do more than roll his eyes.

“You’re thinking about it,” Loki said to him, which meant he was shouting actually.

Thor so was.

“I’m sure they have a helmet big enough for your head.”

Thor’s lips read, “I know they do.”

“Then, what are you waiting for?”

“Him.” Thor was nodding at the track’s shoulder, at the crimson “look at me” red helmet and race-suit that had gotten out of its matching Stark.

A Stark in a Stark.

Tony Stark’s helmet hair could’ve passed for his regular hair. “I thought I spotted some blond lusting over my wheels in the gallery.” They shook old hands like two 70-year-olds reminded of glory days. “I can always count on you to surprise me.”

“Surprising you is the only way to guarantee you won’t hide in some workshop,” said Thor.

“Hiding?” Tony Stark asked Loki non-verbally, “Can you believe this guy?” That was an excuse for him to shift his weight to one leg and look Loki over properly. He told Thor, “You’ve met your ceiling, bud. There’s no way you go up from this.”

Thor snorted. “He’s my executive assistant.”

“Hi, Mr. Stark. Loki if you remember.”

“That’s cruel. Now you’ve gone and ruined my marriage before it started, Thor.” Not Thor’s sexual-romantic property translated to open for Tony Stark to treat like the numerous men and women that’d ended up in Tony Stark’s bed because fame was an aphrodisiac. It was always amusing when they mistook Loki for being normal. “You’re young and sharply-dressed. Let me pick that gorgeous brain of yours for a second.”

Loki couldn’t decide that was funnier: Tony being so brazen or him pretending to be deferent to Thor by saying after Loki had already gone a few steps with him, “You won’t die if I take your secretary for a ride.” Ha, ha. “I promise I’ll bring him back spotless.”

Tony sought to do that personally after showing Loki to the passenger side and trying to put the spare helmet on Loki by himself. Loki intercepted it to finish the job with his own hands. He lifted the eye visor and straightened his hair around the choke point.

Tony took the unfamiliarity of being disobeyed better than Thor. “Jesus. What erotic Tolkien fanfiction did they pull you out of?”

“Hammerfest, Norway.” He waved at Thor through the windshield.

Thor chose to maintain his crossed arms.

He’d been G-force checked in the passenger of no less than two of Thor’s. Meaning: he didn’t squeal for his life as Tony mashed the throttle to the floor. Tony took corners too sharply and let the back end kick out in retaliation, which was all the enjoyment of a roller coaster without the annoyance of dodging three-wide prams and standing in line behind 20-member broods. Thor had shaken his head when he looked over at Loki grinning after Thor did the most illegal U-turn in traffic history sub-100. He’d have loved the look on Loki’s face when Tony did a final donut.

“Tell me why you haven’t lobbied for more lax road laws?” Loki asked.

“I don’t know. That’s actually a good question.” Tony didn’t unbuckle. Getting out to vomit would’ve ruined the illusion. “You know how to drive stick?”

“I have on occasion.”

“There are two of these cars currently in existence,” Tony said. “So, what do you say about taking her for a spin?”

Tony Stark was the boy that teased the dog and cried over his bitten hand because he’d just been playing.

Loki leaned just over the center console and asked, “Will you be helping my hands hold the steering wheel?”

Tony flinched when Thor knocked on the window.

“You’ve had your joyride,” Thor shouted. “I’d like to have our meeting.”

“Maybe later then,” he told Tony.

Tony sounded quite winded when he said, “Yeah.” He collected his runaway charisma to tend to his blurred business-personal relationship with Thor, not a difficult task when Thor wanted to do nothing else than talk to Tony. Nothing — especially not acknowledge Loki third-wheeling in their twin shadow.

All Loki had was five advanced degrees. He didn’t have a corporation or billions of dollars, and that was the currency of Thor’s respect and adoration if you weren’t his mom.

Thor wasn’t using Loki anyway. What did it matter if Loki let the crowd of Stark employees trying to squeeze onto the elevator go ahead of him and decided altogether against getting on?

Tony would say, “Looks like your secretary got squeezed off,” two floors down, and Thor would reply, “He’ll catch the next one,” and resume where he left off, expecting it so much, the two of them, that they’d never notice that it never happened. 

The “Guest of Mr. Stark” pass welcomed him right into Stark F1’s base of operations. What was the big hoopla about mechanical engineering? The jocks of the field Thor and Tony would’ve had you think it began and ended at “cars and stars.” All of the meticulous research couldn’t be summed up into a sub-heading on _Fortune_ magazine. People like Thor for instance didn’t care about what they didn’t understand because if it was important, they’d understand it. Wrong, for one. Two, it was understandable if you were willing to pass on the night out with _Forbes_ _’ 50 under 50._ But what did Loki know? He hadn’t built any rockets or cars.

Looking at the math over the shoulder of Stark’s unsung code monkeys trialing simulations though it was clear he could’ve. It looked like he’d only live once after all, so what was the harm in stepping into the brewing frustration and offering his twenty-two cents?

A chair was put under his ass for him to put his back into it. It was nothing too complex, but he’d never complain about a chair.

He almost missed the blond hair that popped into his periphery.

“Loki,” Thor was a decibel from shouting as Tony Stark whined to his employees about data leakage and internal sabotage because they’d let themselves be “infiltrated.” He was in the space in Loki’s periphery that had been navy lab coats. “What the hell are you doing down here?”

“Yeah, good damned question,” said Tony. He invaded Loki’s personal sphere to edge him away from the keyboard, ranting about how the world had gotten crazier than him. “What is supposed to even be happening here?”

“He’s—” someone started to explain, but they were silenced by a look Loki didn’t need to witness to see.

Loki, up, returned Tony’s personal space the favor. “I”—he couldn’t say he didn’t love a punctuative key stab—“did Stark F1 the massive favor of throwing some chaotic reality to your stunningly optimistic simulation.”

Tony Stark was scrolling for errors like Thor had stooped over Loki’s shoulder for weeks on the hunt for before he realized he’d never find them. Tony gave up much faster than Thor.

Thor was only thinking how he’d sooner have time to chew Loki out since Tony was going to get it out of the way so soon.

Tony laughed. “Seriously, what self-insert space opera from my teens did someone pull you out of?”

“MIT?”

Thor looked very alarmed.

“Right now. I’ll offer you 500k — starting, base, and without bonuses. You’ll get an office. Hell, these people who’ve won us the last four WCCs, they’ll answer to you. I’ll answer to you.”

“I don’t know what you think happened,” Thor said to Tony, “but we have dinner plans, and Loki has information that he needs to catch up on. Alright? Let’s go.” Thor amended that in the hall that Tony should go ahead to the restaurant or take care of whatever it was he needed to because Thor and Loki had another matter to attend to.

“I’m bringing my A-game to dinner,” Tony told Loki. “Learn this place. You’re going to call it home soon.”

Thor let out a single, fake “heh.” Being undermined had really crawled up his ass and traumatically died.

Loki saw “You don’t need to worry about coming to dinner” coming from Thor telling the driver to take them to their hotel. “Business does spoil the taste of dinner,” Loki said.

“You have everything you need with me.”

It was always awkward when Thor forgot that this was professional, not personal.

“Even if I said I was interested, which I didn’t, I’m a bit tied up in LA.”

“You should’ve told him ‘no.’ Why didn’t you? Are you trying to negotiate for more?” Thor could not conceive that Loki was thinking of thinking about it. “You’re fine.” 

He couldn’t not say, “Am I?”

Thor was amused. “What, Loki? Do you need me to praise you for how smart you are like Stark and everyone else does? You’ll have to forgive me for struggling to see why I should do that when you constantly don’t make it a secret that you feel like this job is beneath you when – I don’t know – the smart thing to do would be to realize how lucky you are to have it.”

 _Loki_ was _lucky_ to have this job? Loki?

You just had to laugh. “Those few hours with Tony Stark have been good for your sense of humor, Mr. Odinson.”

Logically why would Loki be lucky to have this job? It was a job, not a favor. Oh, was it that Thor meant that Loki, in particular, was lucky because of who he was? And Loki didn’t mean “master wit-smith, minor deity of annoyances.” That would’ve been giving himself too much credit. It was all nature, the aspect of Loki that made him so fucking lucky.

Loki had the honor of being recognized as Thor’s safety blanket. Legions of dumbfucks would’ve fought to the death for the chance to be considered for it. Thor didn’t understand why Loki wasn’t a part of them.

“Send Tony Stark my regards,” he told Thor.

From his university email, Loki sent Tony Stark’s personal one a message to “leave the offer open, winky face.” 

“I’ve always had a soft spot for New York,” Thor commented, taking his seat on the jet across from Loki, and Loki glanced down at the new email from one “Tony Stark.”

_“That was the plan._

_Keep doing what you_ _’re doing with Thor, will you? Guy hasn’t been more relaxed in years. Besides the part where he threatened me if I thought about ‘tapping up’ an employee of his.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thor's really putting the "asshole" in asshole boss, isn't he?


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Figured I'd post another chapter while I was at it. Gotta get Thor At Maximal Dickishness outta the way.
> 
> Glossary:  
> national geographic - nature magazine  
> pornhub - porn website  
> lizard brain - phrase for part of brain that operates base instincts (like breathing, sexing)  
> Astroglide - personal lubricant  
> Saint Laurent - high-end, severe quintessentially luxury Paris fashion label  
> Xanax - a depressant drug

“It’s yours,” Thor told Loki in front of the matte deep evergreen Stark Mark VII Leiptr he’d parked behind Loki’s neighbor’s VW Beetle.

“It’s yours,” had said the billionaire about the million-dollar car.

Loki sat in it, hybrid engine purring at him, and asked Thor as he leaned in through the open window, “Is this a roundabout way of telling me I don’t have access to the car service anymore?”

In his eye-contact-proof aviators, Thor’s head turned to tell Loki he was looking at him. “No.”

Rather than taking it for a joyride up the coast like Thor envisioned Loki would, Loki cut the engine, prompting a confused Thor to reel back from the window and allow Loki to open the door to get out. Loki wasn’t an enlightened lover of vehicles like Thor and Tony Stark were. He showed that to Thor when he said, “Well, the resale value will be amazing a few decades from now. I’ll put it in storage later.”

Thor didn’t immediately trail Loki back to the chauffeured car that’d followed Thor because he had to talk himself down from stuffing Loki in the carry-on sized boot of the car and driving him out to the Mojave Desert. What did he expect from the same Loki ungrateful to have this job as Thor had said?

#

Pity was, admittedly, a defective capability of Loki’s, but the owl-eyed, pocket-protector-toting geeks garnered an abundance of it.

If anyone deserved it, it was the believers admitting that they’d committed the deadliest sin to the face of their god. They had failed.

The bravest stumbled to explain that the delay — “failure” Thor’s short-circuiting mind was autocorrecting — would only mean a “few” more weeks but another second more than the promised launch was not what Thor wanted to hear.

“You mean to tell me that we’re not going to be ready for Friday.”

That was rhetorical. In their naiveté and hero worship, they missed that, and one said for them all, “No, not yet.”

There’d been enough geeks and nerds that’d been stuffed into lockers and trash cans by the knock-off Thors that Thor didn’t need to add his touch despite the jaw-shattering punch that Thor’s fists were willing to dole out. 

“We’ll put a tenuous date at the 15th then,” said Loki, immune to the dread and the rage. “You should get back to work. I know firsthand that science doesn’t mysteriously happen, unfortunately.”

In case their molasses-slow turning to go didn’t suffice, Loki helped himself to a handful of Thor’s arm’s part of his Greek statue impersonation and beckoned Thor to “come on.”

Thor did not come on. _National Geographic_ and _Pornhub_ were meeting in Thor’s lethal stare out on the MechE museum for a lab, and as entertaining — and arousing — as Thor denting a titanium rocket part with his knee would’ve been, Loki did not want to have his impeccable record as Thor’s superego stained for being party to Thor’s rage-out, so he eclipsed the prospective targets with his eyelids low and swept his hair away from his neck over his shoulder.

Loki’s inhuman white won. “We should leave,” he said deliberately slow. “Doesn’t that sound like an appetizing idea?”

Thor and Loki’s neck shared a private, lizard-brain-fueled moment.

Thor exhaled over the machinery and echoing voices. “Let’s go.”

None of the employees passed received a response from Thor, but they had their faces intact at least. 

“An end-of-the-year launch,” said Loki as they boarded a fortunately empty elevator. “It’s very festive.”

“It’s not what we fucking planned for.”

“I didn’t know you were so… rigid.”

“I’m—” Thor caught the defensiveness. “I’m running a company here. We can’t fucking wing it. That’s not—” There was confusion when Thor stopped himself.

“—how you get things done?”

The _New Yorker_ profile’s ghost was appearing to both of them, highlighted: “I know it’s not popular, but I like to wing it.”

“Stress makes hypocrites of the lot of us,” said Loki.

“I just want this done. As soon as possible. We don’t have time for delays.”

“Well, clearly, you do.”

Thor had as much faith in the elevator not guillotining him as his acolytes did in him to glare at Loki instead of watching himself get out. “Contact marketing, PR—”

“I know, Thor.”

“You should. It’s your job.”

“Yes, to be the Astroglide of your life.”

Thor wasn’t quite there yet, but he’d have a snicker to himself later. His shoulders were holding onto the anger but softened as far as that went with Thor’s muscles for Loki. “Fucking hell. I can’t believe this.”

It would’ve been nothing to ask if Thor minded if Loki made those phone calls and wrote those emails in Thor’s office to be Thor’s Xanax. Nothing at all. It would’ve been clever, and Thor had made it all too apparent that he didn’t care for Loki’s clever. 

He didn’t care for Loki.

Loki took back his hand. “Well, your next meeting isn’t for an hour. You can go lift up some ridiculously heavy things to burn off your stress.”

Loki got straight into dialing the head of SpaceA marketing like Thor wasn’t stood there needing a Loki-shaped life preserver to prevail over Thor’s pride.

Thor’s pride had done a decent enough job so far. It could handle Thor dragging himself into his office to frost the glass to hide him pacing aimlessly. 

Loki wasn’t paid to deal with that.

#

“I don’t need you.” Rude.

Loki’d been midway through asking Thor the question on the flip side of that answer like Thor would’ve bitten his head off for neglecting, but point taken. For Thor’s quest in the reports he was squinting at, he was urgently unneeded.

All but off-the-clock, he became the Saint Laurent Parisian one chain-smoked cigarette away from drifting away into the vibrant people noise Rio comfortingly patted his leather jacket in. To hell with Thor and his narcissism pretending to be dedication. If he had any self-awareness, he’d have gotten sick of himself decades ago, but that was just the rest of them that had to deal with it. Tequila and brainless EDM pretended too, were better at Thor’s narcissism in being NyQuil to the ache of being Thor’s footstool.

Rugged Blond — almonds, he smelled like almonds — was eager to massage Loki’s booboo, spared no time whispering into his ear in straightforward, Portuguese-bathed English if he’d like to go back to his hotel. 

Why not? Loki wasn’t needed elsewhere.

Rugged was all tongue, little technique, but his hair was a reign to put that to good use. He had promises that hummed in his chest like Loki imagined his would, and the right angle turned “eh” into “oh,” that Cock deep, massive hands all over him, beard scraping sweet stimulation into his shoulder.

Rugged — he told Loki his name like it mattered. Adorable — he insisted on escorting Loki back to his hotel in some infatuated go at romanticism. If it lowered the chances of him following Loki on his own, so be it. Loki’s ass was partial to large hands enjoying it.

His phone had two calls from an hour ago. A _“Where are you?”_ text on the side but no cause for concern being that the same man had said, “I don’t need you.”

Sirens saved his life and for the good of the world, Rugged’s too in the crosswalk’s flank, tires screeching the cop car stopped somewhere behind the flare of douchebag high beams.

Loki lifted his hand in thank you for the yield.

The passenger side produced one Thor, authenticated by that shout of “Loki!”

Police and their Michael Bay action movie gear and guns were confirming that Loki was definitely not needed and that they had it all handled.

“Where the fuck have you been?” Thor’s hand effortlessly fucked with Loki’s previously solid footing by the arm like he wasn’t sure that Loki was here right now.

“I wasn’t needed.”

Thor’s attention veered over to confused Rugged. The metaphorical bullet slid into Thor’s metaphorical barrel, the cocking the diamond-forging flexing of his jaw. “And who the fuck are you?”

Before the idiot — because he was one. Anyone that hadn’t sprinted at the sight of Thor was — replied, Loki saved his life for the second time. “He’s none of your concern and is just about to be on his way.”

A one-v-one of Rugged vs. Thor would’ve been more evenly matched than Thor vs. 100 engineers, but the police had an investment in keeping Thor spotless to maximize the monetary thank you Thor’d definitely promised them for overtime, and bullets were only as smart as their users.

So, Loki was playfully urging Rugged to fuck off.

“Goodnight, meu amor.” All blond men with hair past their shoulders were adrenaline junkies, weren’t they?

Thor had two holes through Loki’s skull in his imagination, clean tunnels bore from a joint venture of astonishment and indignation. “Get in the fucking car.”

To think he’d had worse ride homes from hook-ups than the armed nuclear warhead of Thor, jogging his knee so hard the car chassis was at risk, and eager-to-please guns. It was the appropriate atmosphere to draft that clench-toothed email to the empty suit that’d threatened a sit-in at Thor’s office if he wasn’t seen Monday. “Please, chief dumbfuck, do not do that lest you want to resign by death” was a fairly good too long; didn’t read.

In the elevator, he casually rolled his head to the side to reassure Thor’s irate side profile that he’d go shower. It wasn’t an invitation, no. His bathwater would’ve had the value of bin juice to Thor, mind the fact that Loki’d never been keen to steep in a one-night stand. But the shower returned him to net zero. His scent wasn’t living proof of the grand betrayal of exercising personal autonomy anymore when he interrupted Thor’s 100m dash to the bottom of a rum bottle.

Thor glared as he gulped down his glass.

“I have a kill switch on my phone,” Loki said. “If I were to be kidnapped by some organized crime racket, I’d trigger it. For future reference before you enlist the police on a search after two missed calls.”

Thor dropped his thirsty glass on the table with a suck of the teeth. “I know you’re hopped up on your shitty lay, but let’s get something straight. When I call, you answer. And if you don’t, you don’t do anything else until you call me back. Nothing else matters except calling me.” And yes, Thor had considered breathing and other basic necessities. “When you're with me, no bullshit. I'm not paying you to get fucked by fucking strangers. Do that on your own time.”

“I’m on call 24/7.”

“Then, that sounds like a personal problem. Or a sign that you shouldn’t be doing it at all. Go have a wank. It’s better than what’s out there.”

“So, just to make sure that I’m getting this—”

“Don’t play dumb. We both know you aren’t. All you need to do is tell me yes. Alright?”

"Understood" had a reputation for being an alt "yes" but Loki was an advocate for it as a "maybe-to-no." Because the implied celibacy, listen, that was not functional, not when Thor’s tits did that in his button-down from the mere act of him standing and he looked down at Loki like that. Loki needed his wrists functioning to man his phone 24/7 like Thor dreamt of.

When Thor’s bedroom door slammed Loki off the hot seat, Loki reached forward to finish off the three fingers of rum Thor’d been so kind to leave him. 

#

Thor and the very bad no good streak climaxed with “Leiptr A5 Coupe Fatal Crash.”

 _Reuters_ _’_ breaking news prepped Loki for broken vases and shouting that’d await him at the office. Loki had been promised death by Nobel Laureates in undergrad labs to be able to calmly answer Thor’s call that asked, “Where the hell are you? Get to the airport now,” and not hang up on Thor, no — Thor hung up on him anyway — but get to the airport. Now.

In the dim light of 6:00 am, Thor threatened to chest check Loki, the contempt darkening his eyes in a not strictly unappealing way. The bravado, it failed to move Loki back away from the SpaceA on Thor’s hoodie. “Let’s go.” 

Pity how trackies couldn’t do Thor’s ass justice, but they did, along with the hoodie, add some depth to the tortured soul look Thor was subconsciously aiming for. Outraged he wasn’t garnering the same sorrow from Loki as it was the flight attendants and the pilots, Thor demanded Loki back into the bedroom suite and slammed and locked them both inside of it. 

Being trapped in limited space tens of thousands of feet above the ground with the angriest man alive, what could’ve gone wrong?

Because it needed to be said, Loki did, “No one will blame you for this, Thor.”

“What the hell do you know? Someone is dead because of me—”

“They’re dead because a tech bro ignored the dozen warnings to not use the autopilot feature unsupervised and while napping, slaughtered some bicyclist. I don’t see where you fit into that equation.”

“Leiptr—”

“—is a corporation, yes, founded by you, but did you build the car? You struggle to open Google Chrome. You’re not programming autopilot software.”

Thor’s jaw muscles squared off as his fists clenched. “I have a right to feel the way I do. I’m not fucking whining. A company that I started — that I started to make the world a safer place, a better place — we didn’t do that. A father —” Thor’s eyelids caught the gloss before it could materialize into something as pedestrian as tears. Thor would never let himself cry. A deep breath flared his nostrils.

His shoulders melted visibly as the molecules of Loki seeped into Thor’s bloodstream. The cure to the side effects of Thor’s savior complex.

“Not all fathers are good fathers.”

Thor reigned the risk of tears in. He confidently dared Loki to go on where he thought he was.

“You don’t know what kind of person he was. He could’ve been a vile person. He could’ve emotionally and physically abused his wife, all but holding her hostage in a miserable marriage because well, she had to stay together for the kids.”

“He’s dead—”

“Yes. He’s dead. That’s all you know about him. A person died. A name in a news article. A back-story to a bullet point in a history book recounting the struggles of the early introduction of autonomous electric car technology.”

“I’m sure his family feels that way.”

“Are you? And if they do, what does that matter to you? Really? Lesson learned. People are selfish fucking idiots that think they’re invincible. What new thing did you learn from this that you didn’t already know? How does it change your life?”

Thor didn’t have an answer to a question that he’d never been asked. “So, what? I’m supposed to just not do anything?”

“What can you do? Craft the press release where you express your sympathies. Maybe, send them a free Leiptr if you’re feeling morbid. You have no responsibility here.”

“How can you say that?” It was meant as an insult, but it came out as a genuine question because Thor wanted to understand.

“Because, Thor, let’s face it. You don’t think about any individual but yourself enough to have caused this.” Loki patted Thor on the SpaceA logo, Thor’s heartbeat patting his palm back. “I’ll go find you some coffee before you lose your mind.”

It was a quiet flight to San Francisco.

#

Well, would you look at that? The International Conference on Nuclear Chemistry fell on Thor’s birthday.

HR confirmed that when he requested the three days including it off, but he assured them that it’d be no problem. Thor was getting a well-deserved break from Saving the Future of the Human Race or work as they called it, so what would he need Loki for?

They told him HR pooled together a Thor-sized birthday card as they usually did for a gift. Him? He was freeing Thor from him. Wasn’t that enough? They had a nice laugh at that.

On Birthday Eve, Loki left his acknowledgment of time off from HR on his desk and a Post-It note scribbled with “Happy Birthday” in Norwegian.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things Thor needs to work on: apology gift-giving, appropriate conduct with his secretary, opening up emotionally, oh, and coping with not having Loki around on his birthday as he deserves


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not endorse non consensual drug use! It's bad, mmkay? Take drugs responsibly and don't measure by eye like chemists and madmen do. 
> 
> Funny story: so, one of my fave professors, they told me this story that back in the day when they'd go to math conferences in the 80s, one of their mathematician peers would bring a briefcase of recreational drugs. I'm talking full-on. And they'd call them "creative aides." It's always stuck with me, and I'd like to shoutout that mathematician wherever they are probably high af, if they're still alive, for the influence.
> 
> Glossary of things that may be of interest:  
> B-52 - a drink made w/ Irish creme, grand marnier, and Kahlua.  
> Cromwell reign - in the 1650s  
> He-Man - the dude being heyayayayay meme; Masters of the Universe was a cartoon made by the Barbie people back in the day. He's technically She-Ra's twin brother.  
> MIT - a college in Boston; one of the best   
> NUS - National University of Singapore; one of the best schools in the world  
> Imperial - a college in London; one of the best schools in the world  
> Unobtainium - a term for a material that is unrealistic or impossible  
> London Eye - a big af ferris wheel near the River Thames  
> HALO jump - a high-altitude jump; Tom Cruise did one in Mission Impossible which was highly publicized because it's dangerous  
> lo-fi - low quality, often blurry and poorly color-balanced in photography terms

There were people that actually cared about what Loki had to say when – get this – it had nothing to do with them personally. Yes. They believed that Loki was key to humanity’s progression not for how calming he smelled but because of the stuff in his head. Amazing.

Thor’d have been astounded at the symmetrical, unobligated exchange of ideas commonplace to a conference like this. And the fact that they relocated to the pub “down the road” recommended by the Imperial contingent after the hotel shuttered its bar to keep it going, what a Twilight Zone it would’ve been for him.

He couldn’t pull another Halloween — firstly because it wasn’t just some holiday but _his_ birthday. A “thank you” from the world for gracing it with his presence, Mars’ future Christmas. Loki was also on another continent in London to bat But most importantly, he’d have caught fire coming within a meter radius of five-plus academics. No flambé to Loki’s blood in the seat vacated by a 60-year-old professor with an equally 60-year-old bladder, no so-early-it-was-still-night coup d’états of his alarm clock.

Obviously because Loki had his work number’s forwarding turned off and he’d never technically given Thor his personal number, but Thor’s fury at being ignored would’ve worn off at the first lock of eyes with some bachelorette party stepping out of the car on the Vegas Strip.

Loki was a work aid. Thor was, for once, not working. Therefore, no need for Loki.

Thor’d gift himself an extra day off, pretending it’s over Loki’s absence and not the hangover that’d have killed a regular person, and then, Loki would matter to him again.

Was this what the next three years of Loki’s life were going to be like? Only as free as he was useless to Thor.

That Thor knew of.

Loki mixed glowing blue-white atomic shots (3 parts gin, 3 parts tonic, 2 jalapeño rounds) in the UV light of some air hockey table in the arcade a block over from the hotel that’d never seen this much action since the 90s and numbed his taste buds and throat taking them down like Thor, Loki far from his mind, did somewhere in Vegas.

Vegas, like Thor, was overrated.

Loki’s overrated boss would’ve been thrilled if he weren’t bottomed out in a bottle and a swimsuit model that Antonio Banderas’ long-lost Professor fraternal twin’s interest was unwavering even before the end of his first cup of espresso. Sitting with him and the darlings fresh off tapings for talking heads in _Nuclear Energy Documentary #900_ , Loki tasted the charm of being at the top of the social hierarchy that skipping high school had starved him of, aka the usual for Thor. As if Thor was normal or would’ve let Loki set the pace from breakfast to Conference Day 2 kick-off.

With the man not breathing down — or in — his neck, Loki sharpened his Spanish chatting iodide atom diffusion. There was no faster way into someone’s pants than speaking their native language well, and Loki all but had a hand down those.

The elevator doors opened onto their floor, the lobby floor, and the influx of air polarized his blood.

That would be courtesies of tall, blonde, and somehow, someway — because of course — Thor.

The minimal effort bun left no doubt about the shallow scar of a lifetime of pleased eyebrow raises, and Loki’d seen the shoulders live their best broad lives in that substance first, style second gray overcoat, but the silver aviators hid his eyes, so Loki couldn’t be sure that was Thor. Because it couldn’t be.

“Loki.”

That was, in fact, Thor.

It very clearly was because why else would everyone else’s eyes be stuck on him as they scooted past him out of the elevator, but how?

Having learned from Donald, Loki dismissed his midnight reservation to finish up with him later before Thor acted on the glaring discontent that had his mouth at a flat 180 degrees.

“What are you doing here?”

Thor reached in his pocket and held up a post-it, now curled at the corners. That was Loki’s post-it. He flatly said, “You didn’t even tell me you were taking time off.”

“I told HR. It says in my contract, the original one—”

“You should’ve told me. I — I had to use this as a clue, Loki. I didn’t know what the hell was going on. And then, I go to HR and hear this is your idea of a birthday gift.” On anyone else, that was hopeless exasperation, but this was Thor. These sunglasses had the evil power of completely concealing Thor’s eyes. “‘The International Conference on Nuclear Chemistry.’ That’s what you skipped out on me for?”

Wow, Thor remembered Loki’s other Ph.D. and had the mind to look up “notable events” for Caltech’s chemistry division. The dedication to self-righteousness. It would propel humanity beyond Earth.

“Here I thought I was doing you a favor not burdening you with the goings on of the pittance of life I maintain outside of you. It really is hard to satisfy the man who has everything. You think you’ve nailed it, but it turns out no, that’s still not good enough.” 

A contact at NUS, a burgeoning atomic shot champion, nodded at him, and Loki didn’t pretend Thor had his undivided attention like Thor expected, nodding back.

“You’re upset with me.”

“No. A bit annoyed, yes, but not upset. I mean, concerning myself with you, that’s a part of the job, which I’m incredibly lucky to have. I’m currently off the clock, so I don’t feel much of anything for you.”

“Really? You want me to believe that?”

“Again, I’m not working. I don’t really care what you believe.”

“And you say you’re not upset.”

“Oh, I’m getting there. Don’t worry. The entitlement to think you could come hijack my time because as your living infinite coke line, I have nothing better to do than what you want would upset anyone.”

“This is about Blake, isn’t it? You’re still hung up I ruined your booty call.”

That was farther than Mars off base and a summary of all that was wrong with Thor. If Loki wasn’t going to make it right now, then he never would.

“On second thought, I quit.”

Only Thor’s eyebrows reacted, going completely limp. “What?”

“I quit. Consider this me tendering my resignation,” he said. “I thank you for the experience, but I’m no longer a good fit.”

“You, you can’t quit.” Too late. “I’m sorry. Alright? Whatever I did, I’m sorry. If you tell me —”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s not your problem anymore. We both have places to be, so I’ll let you get to yours.”

“No. No, no.” Thor let out one of those exasperated laughs. There was a closing smile to match when he bodily blocked Loki. “I don’t accept your resignation. You can’t throw out quitting because you’re pissed at something —”

“‘Something.’”

“—I did. Loki—”

“Thor.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know saying that must be foreign to you, but you’re supposed to say that when you know that you have something to be sorry for. A tip from a mortal.”

“Hard to do that when you won’t tell me.” Thor revealed his eyes, pocketing his sunglasses. It was apt that they looked like the other side of a weekend-long coke bender. “I can make this good.”

Oh, yeah. Right there. So close.

“As a birthday gift, I’ll personally pick my replacement.”

“You’re not quitting. You’re going to tell me what the fuck to do, and I’m going to do it.”

“You can’t.”

“I can. I can.” Desperation was so Thor’s color. “Please.”

That was the spot.

“So, you’re ready to admit that I’m the best thing that’s ever happened to you, that your life was incomplete before you met me, that I’ve brought out the best of you, and you’re lucky that I didn’t decide to pick up some sci-fi show fact-checking job?”

“Yes. All of that.”

Loki’s head shake warned of “I don’t believe you” and him then faking Thor’s block out and instead, circumventing his other side.

“I need you,” Thor said at his back. “I’ve never needed anyone, but I need you.” He had Loki’s attention. Not his commitment. That’d have been turning around after stopping. “Is it always easy? No. Far from it. But the highs, they’re the highest they’ve ever been. The lows, they’re what the highs used to be. I know that. You do too. I thought it was clear you’ve changed my life, that I’m glad you did.”

Thor had 75% of Loki’s attention. His lo-fi periphery self was abusing his fists more than Loki’s time. “Everyone I’ve ever met combined hasn’t talked down to me as much as you do in a week. Being constantly reminded you think I’m a fucking joke that lucked into everything and that you’d walk into any job anywhere — it doesn’t exactly make me feel like I’m not alone there.”

Boohoo. Loki didn’t pray to shrine of Thor at night like everyone else. As annoyed as that was, the explicit admission that Loki got under Thor’s skin, that earned Thor 99.99% of Loki’s attention.

Thor’s vague helplessness clenched Loki. “That said, it doesn’t change what I said before. That, you know, you’re good for me. The best.”

“Apology accepted. For now,” Loki said. “Think of it as your birthday gift.”

Thor got some anxiety and frustration out in that exhale. “Good.”

Loki’s golden retriever puppy couldn’t stop himself from blindly following him.

#

Conferences were not “plus one” events as Thor wouldn’t know. But everyone single person in that room from the undergrad that’d checked thousands of emails to grovel for a chance to pad their resume with it to Loki did, and if someone broke that unspoken rule then that plus one had to be special. Dr. Loki Laufeyson, Ph.D., Nuclear Chemistry, qualified as special without Thor; thank you, Thor who did not qualify to be here with their foremost minds in Nuclear Chemistry.

Loki exchanged good mornings with scientists he’d met last night and did not introduce Thor.

Thor’s hand ingratiated itself between Loki and them for Thor to introduce himself to these Bulgarians who had no clue who he was. Nor did they need to. “Aren’t you going to introduce me?” Thor had the nerve to tell him after Loki saved them from Thor. “They might know me, but I don’t know these people.”

“Oh, trust me. They didn’t know you.” Loki did a drive-by nod. “You should go upstairs and sleep. You flew 10 hours, and I know you slept none of those. There’s a chance the maid hasn’t changed my sheets yet.”

“No, I’m staying.”

Of course. At Loki’s table, the MIT-Caltech alliance, Loki said hello to the ones already seated and he pulled his chair aside for Thor to slide one in and introduced them all to “the man in my life Thor Odinson.”

Confused, yes, confused but equal parts amused as he nodded hellos to everyone. His arm helped itself to the spine of Loki’s chair for Loki to warm his scapulae on while the speaker of the hour shared her amazing research, research that went past Thor’s head, not that Thor cared to fix it. For the birthday boy who’d insisted on coming to Loki’s conference, Loki teetered into Thor’s body heat and treated his cheek to the warning tingles of being too close to Thor to quietly force feed “explain like I’m an undergrad” explanations.

As great of an eye-roll Thor lifting his other arm to oblige the open floor for questions was, him asking a coherent one albeit about how the research could be commercialized said lots for Loki’s teaching abilities, no?

Loki took some of Thor’s jacket to sleeve to urge him out of the room before they could see who’d take the initiative to whore their research out for some of that SpaceA/Leiptr funding. As the few delegates from Caltech knew, Loki had that market cornered.

Thor was eying a men’s restroom sign. On a normal day, Thor would’ve “wait here”d Loki, but today, Thor was about to challenge his bladder to a game of endurance because his newfound separation anxiety couldn’t risk coming out piss and Loki free.

This keyed-up Thor would not do.

Nothing Harvard’s own self-anointed nuclear chemistry conference pharmacist couldn’t help Loki fix.

Loki told Thor to use the bathroom. “I’m going to go talk to a colleague.”

The obnoxious laughter from Harvard, Ph.D., Honorary PharmD screamed conversational bear-trap, music to Thor’s ears.

While Thor emptied out the dozen anxious in-flight coffees, with his charm, Loki scored a fucking International Nuclear Chemistry Society pen upgraded from ink to MDMA’s powder form.

Thor’s F1 pitstop of a piss didn’t beat the pen to security in Loki’s pocket. Loki piggybacked the hell out of Thor’s eternally ridiculous timing to relocate jacket from body to grab and guide them away to “Congratulations, you lasted through a conference talk” drinks a handful of blocks to the laddiest pub. Fit for Thor.

“By the way, it’s his birthday” wound the barkeep up to distract Thor from how raw the wound where he pried open his chest cavity to bare his heart was, yes — and from the “gulp” Loki took of the pint Thor’d neglected to watch his complementary shots of whiskey allegedly from the Cromwell reign poured. 

Amber did a good job disguising any of Loki’s little addition to the pint.

The face Thor made when he chugged the pint had to be near the one he made when he orgasmed.

“So, what are your friends thinking right now?” Loki asked.

“They’re probably having breakfast. I told them to go without me. We’ve done Vegas before. I’m not missing out of anything new.” 

“New holes. Poles. You do like your… parties to have variety.”

“Well. You have both covered.”

“That I do. I’m a veritable walking, talking all-you-can-eat buffet.”

The barkeep with another shot, younger than Cromwell era, saved Thor.

The, what, 60-ish mg of Fun linked elbows with the alcohol into Thor’s bloodstream, and the date Loki had with annoying an ex-professor on speaker duties delayed for Thor to lip-bite “ah, fuck” over falafel. Who was Loki to deny him after that?

The little pitstop had them entering in the middle of that “this isn’t funny but I’ll pretend it is for co-authorship chances” laughter, not that Loki needed to force anything with that disaffected look from his ex-professor but himself to not laugh too hard. Thor said, “He looks thrilled to see you,” humidifying Loki’s ear and smiling like he did on phone calls with the lads.

At the back of the conference room, Thor wrangled meat into his mouth until a blot of sauce escaped onto Thor’s thigh, and of course, Thor’s melodramatic “shit” found a break between sentences. Judgment tensed everyone’s argyle and tweed shoulders, that sparked the building laughter, laughter becoming noises they hid in their sleeves, both of them in Thor’s because Thor’s arms had more surface area and you know, smelled like That.

“You’re such a bad influence, Mr. Odinson,” Loki murmured, and pupils blown, Thor smirked in that cock-tickling way as he finished his falafel under the anxious voice of Loki’s ex-professor. His ex-professor thought choosing Loki’s raised hand last was the winning strategy, but that only meant the room emptying with his nervous bullshitting fresh on their minds.

As Loki placed an order at a bakery nearby, Thor asked, “What did he do to you?” He actually sounded concerned.

“He was a condescending asshole who refused to write me a letter of recommendation to get into Caltech’s Ph.D. program because he wanted me to stay on in his lab. It’s like you have to be a twat to qualify for a Nobel Prize.”

Thor went “mm.”

“I’m proud of you for passing up that low-hanging fruit.”

“I’m too tall to.” Thor was too occupied smiling at the gob-smacked techbro passing to note Loki’s absolutely, positively unamused look. Thor’s eager pupils did come back when Loki took a hand of titanium arm meat to direct him to their next lecture, which interested Thor so much that he put his thick thigh against Loki’s, relieved both Loki’s spine and chair from back support duty with a squeezing arm just below the lungs, and whispered to Loki about _Masters of the_ fucking _Universe_ , yes, the show with Thor’s twin He-Man.

Obviously the Skeletor slander could not stand, and the lies that He-Man wasn’t a massive himbo — “What? Like me?” Thor said it, not Loki.

Some human tumbleweed rolled up to block their peaceful exit from the conference room, stating that others had been “trying” to listen. Before Loki could reply that he doubted that given the so-called quality of that talk, Thor said, “Hey, do us a favor and listen to this. Fuck off, yeah?”

Unworried about losing any invites to Nobel acceptances, Thor nodded for Loki to continue explaining that He-Man didn’t even have the saving grace of an obsession with Mars and electric cars.

“Though if he had one, with the muscles and the blond hair, chiseled jaw, dreamy blue eyes,” said Thor, pausing them in the mess of dorks and non-dorks in the lobby, “you’d like him.”

Loki pretended to need to think about that. “Hm. No.”

The conference hosted dinner happening in 30 minutes would be a Nuclear Chemistry talent show where Judge Thor destroyed life’s works with shrugs because as agreeable as he was, Thor was Team Electric.

London had better options out there anyway.

Thor had a simple request — “just a steak and some good beer” like today’s trials and tribulations weren’t of his own making.

Loki couldn’t pass up the opportunity to reply, “I’m not your assistant again until tomorrow.”

Tongue pink between his teeth, Thor’s eyes had a tour of Loki from the velour Chelseas to the one rebellious flyaway Loki knew was up there, not that Thor would’ve noticed. That smirk was dirty. MDMA, you dog. “Don’t give me any more ideas.”

No, Loki would never do that.

#

Loki’s year at Imperial brought them to a veritable hole in some 400-year-old wall that really brought out the Viking in Thor’s eyes. The antique, framed black and white lithographs and wood-chiseled menu on the wall would seduce reluctant man-of-the-future Thor. Thor gleefully chatted up the sassy nan moonlighting as a waitress and slung “It’s my birthday actually” around with a smile worth a year of continuous eye-rolling.

It was picture perfect timing, the top lads eager to grunt over rockets and get selfies for the birds turning Thor’s head away from the extra 60, maybe 70 mgs of Fun Loki dissolved in the Bailey’s B-52 shot.

Thor whooped when he slammed the empty shot down. He picked up his pint and said, “What life’s truly about here,” saluting the head toward Loki. 

Disagree and Thor, the guest on Loki’s trip, would too when Loki ignored the warnings that Thor didn’t want any “loud, flashing lights” that went with Thor’s arm rubs all the way to the Roller Disco.

Thor’s astonishment creased the laugh lines next to his eyes and shook his head. His laugh literally croaked against his throat. “Too bad tonight’s not the night you’ll see me fall on my ass.”

“Too bad?” He yanked the lace of his skate tight. “If you’re sitting on it, I can’t see it. That sounds like the bad outcome to me.”

“That was closest you’ve been to a compliment.”

Loki made his most perplexed face and let the inertia of stepping back tug him onto the floor. “I thought it was one.”

Proving that coolness was ultimately a function of the doer, Thor skated up to him, his shoulder knocking Loki for show like he could’ve avoided, but could he have? Really?

Thor’s only two ounces of shame were somewhere in the bottom of a shot glass. Without that, Thor could properly appreciate how Loki’s hips could roll even while his feet were and how bones, those were imaginary constructs when his body was given sparkly instructions to move.

Would you believe that Thor had rhythm? First Justin Hammer and now Thor, the universe just gave it out to anyone. Thor was a bit committed to his little pseudo-samba, but he lent those big shoulders for Loki’s hands to tether to and ventured out to grab Loki’s hand in his heavy, hot one and be his pivot for a spin and to spin using Loki’s ridiculously dainty-feeling hand as a pivot.

After “Happy Birthday” by Stevie Wonder, a request from Loki, they left because as Thor said, “We’ve peaked song wise, Lo.”

Lo. Didn’t you just love drugs?

Outside as Loki checked on his delivery and listened to his brother’s latest “I’m alive” voicemail, a weight dumped on his shoulders only to flourish in Thor’s scent.

“It’s freezing,” Thor explained. “You’re only in a button down.”

Only a gray sweatshirt kept that legendary chest from the passersby, Thor’s coat where? On Loki.

Loki liked Fun Thor. They were going to stop and get a drink. Thor needed the warmth.

And the last 30-something mg of MDMA.

Loki’s arms worked into the absurdly loose ones of Thor’s coat. He repaid Thor with an enhanced Birthday Cake shot and standing in as a leaning post since Thor refused to sit down at the bar like standing would offset the three fingers of rum and other Fun stuff he downed. And the shot of tequila on the house because it was Thor’s birthday.

Thor was too focused on telling everyone they passed to complain about the cold fogging around each of the “happy birthday”s. The various tits flashed by club girls would’ve had Thor braving frostbite. “I love people.”

And they sure loved him.

He rained on Thor’s happy birthday parade by taking a taxi though what was Loki thinking because this was Thor who could befriend anyone and everyone, including this taxi driver with all of the funny anecdotes about his family to tell Thor. The driver’s 12-year-old son wanted to be an engineer. Thor gave him his (aka his assistant’s) personal email.

“That was nice.”

“I could help him. Why wouldn’t I?” Thor genuinely wanted to know. That Fun didn’t give a shit though, not when the MechE marvel of the London Eye bright blued above them.

Thor’s grin caught blue.

Peasants had to share the gondolas, but Thor Odinson all 365 days of the year, his birthday most of all, got to split the view of London with Loki alone.

Thor giggled bracing the little lip for a railing against the shrinking view of the ground. “Back in uni — before I dropped out — we’d get so stoned, and then we’d come here and ride for hours and hours. One of the operators, she had a thing for me, so she’d let us.”

“Did they get a return on that investment?”

“Uh… I can’t remember.”

“That doesn’t sound unusual.” Loki was swaying back and forth, and it wasn’t the gondola but the hand on Loki’s back exacting the mischief of Thor’s stupid little smile. “I bet you’ve filled a hole with better views.”

London stopped shaking. Thor remembered what an ego boost Loki’s waist was, and Loki’s bellybutton had Thor’s finger poking it through his shirt.

Loki got in on the opportunism, claiming that open arm holder for a neck on Thor.

Thor made a noise. “I don’t know. This — it’s really fucking cool. Light pollution, it’s bad. Fucking awful. Hate it. I’ve been campaigning for better regs because astronomy down on the ground has been dry-fucked by it. But when you’re above it like this…”

You could see the good in the bad — the baseline mindset for Thor but with a little help from his friend Molly, Thor derived the special formula for Thor Odinson’s Idealism — one part naiveté and a thousand parts Unobtainium. Because Thor was fleshed out of fairytale materials. He intervened in would-be robberies at that pointy building in the distance with one solid punch and could build a telescope out of reading glasses and a paper towel roll. Thor was fucking _terrified_ of butterflies — “Those fucking wings. That creepy way they fly and the dust they leave on you” and Thor shuddered too — but HALO jumping, sign him right up. “But after the kids are grown up” because Thor’s long-term thinking did apply outside of Mars.

“You know, you look as good as you smell,” said Thor. His pupils hadn’t exhausted themselves yet believe it or not even with the blue reflecting in them. “And it’s weird. You keep smelling better and better.”

How matter of fact that was shouldn’t have been hot.

“I’d kiss you, but you’re my assistant. I’m your boss. I can’t kiss you,” Thor was telling himself. “No matter how gorgeous your lips are.”

Who did Loki love? Molly. When did he want her? Forever.

“Even after all they’ve said to you.”

Thor’s hot nose went all in on Loki’s neck, huffing like a maniac. “You make me feel like I’m out of my mind on coke, coke laced with — I don’t know. Something.”

“Lucky you.”

Thor chuckled, lazily resting his head against Loki’s as their ride came to an end. 

#

He led Thor back out and back to the hotel where all the chemistry pillow talk had retreated to private rooms or to the pubs by 2 am, easing their path up to Loki’s room.

Loki treating himself to an upgrade to an executive suite wasn’t so self-indulgent now with Thor requiring a celestial body’s worth of space to himself, was it? 

The single weekender on the coffee table monogrammed with Thor’s initials would’ve brought him pause if Thor hadn’t already tracked him down and flown ten hours here.

Thor was seated on the couch, opening a bottle of water with his teeth. He did not notice Loki removing the waiting cake from its box and lighting the candles. 

Thor’s head turned the moment Loki took a step toward him.

Candlelight reflecting off of, were those, teeth in Thor’s smile? Was this a full-on Thor grin? For Loki?

“’Blow me.’”

“I thought it would be nice to include instructions for you.” He set down the cake in its strawberry-sprinkled beauty on the coffee table and himself beside Thor. 

“Not going to sing ‘Happy Birthday’?”

“I’d never do that to myself. Go ahead. Make a wish and all that.”

Thor blew out his candles and went: “There.”

“What did you wish for? A gallon of my bodily fluids to wash your laundry in?”

“No but if you’re offering.” He had no regrets as he sacrilegiously took bites out of the uncut cake. “Fuck, it’s good. Here, try it.”

Despite the fork in his hand, Loki did open his mouth and take the cake off the same fork glazed in Thor’s spit. As such, he couldn’t be sure if it was the cake that deserved the credit for tasting good and used his own fork to confirm that it was good in its own right, not quite as good as the first bite for whatever reason but good. 

Loki’s mouth had this recurring habit of voicing thoughts better shepherded along, which he remembered as he said, “I hope I’ve lessened the pain of this being your first birthday without sex in forever.”

The wet sucking of the fingers Thor had at his mouth for a one-two punch to the bright idea the angel and devil in Loki’s pants swelled at. “It’s still my birthday in half the world.”

Thor and his pointed stare didn’t intend on rectifying that anywhere else but here, but still, Loki couldn’t be blamed for being the one to look away in a sort of eye roll and making to stand up, telling Thor there’d be clubs still open.

Thor’s hand was on his wrist, not his throat, but it cut Loki off, cut off any plans blood had for the rest of his body that wasn’t his cock and hole because Loki’s wrist was Thor’s wrist if Thor’s enormous, strong hand so pleased. “Are you wearing underwear?”

Here was the space Loki left for Thor’s alcohol-and-MDMA-battleground brain to jump in with a “Sike!”

That space was closed by Thor’s other hand gracing the elephant in his own jeans with a squeeze that revealed it in all its immensity, there lying in wait across the top of his right thigh.

Thor — truly Thor in the flesh — continued: “I know you don’t wear underwear sometimes. That can’t be comfortable. The seam of your pants rubbing in between your pussy lips like that.”

Thor returned possession of Loki’s wrist to Loki with trailing fingers down Loki’s hand that had to leave burn marks.

Loki allowed a small inhale through the nose that would not allow his heart to make its great escape and returned to the couch where if his knees went offline, he’d comfortably be on his ass. “No. I was going for ease.”

“Of what? Access?”

“Maybe. Why? I’m not on the clock.”

“No, policy’s clear that it covers the full duration of employment. Me being your boss and you being my employee.” Because the access not being for Thor didn’t occur to him. “Legally.”

“You read HR policy? What? Seeing if bashing someone with a phone would go over well?”

“Bruce dropped by yesterday. We had lunch. Can imagine how that went. Point is it’s poor form to, you know, do sexual things with you, but everything else — that’s allowed.” Such as tracing the knobs of spine right at the nape of Loki’s neck with his fingertips.

“So” and Loki was taking over Thor’s periphery, following the hand on his neck back to Thor’s shoulder where he leveraged an elbow to lean in and finish right into Thor’s ear, “you can listen to me tell you how wet and throbbing I am, but you just can’t feel for yourself, huh?”

Thor’s neck flexed on the brakes to not turn and kiss Loki like he would’ve anyone else in the world. “Yeah.”

“Oh. Okay,” he said so coy that it would’ve been natural for him to say Thor was getting out his “thingy” undoing his jeans. Even with all Loki’s dick-sperience, it was a very much a close encounter with a third kind when it properly looked him in the eye, preening shinily and veinily and pinkly — pink, the color his skin had to be if a flush matched the fire under his skin — in Thor’s strong fist. “What are you going to do with that?”

Thor’s shoulder hummed. His fist let his foreskin relax down past the head that’d have caught on that ring half-a-knuckle inside of Loki. “I don’t know. What do you want me to do?”

This was the material capitulation that Thor’s “I need you” had been, an exponentially sexier one.

Loki’s victory sign fingers poked Thor’s lower than low eyelids and guided them down over Thor’s eyes. He outlined Thor’s side profile down to the hard fluff of Thor’s beard, telling him, “You feel my hand on your cock, and it’s going to stroke every last drop of cum out of your body.”

“Fuck, you’ve been thirsting for it, my cum. Was a matter of time. Always giving me yours.”

“I give you what you need, Thor. My cum, your cum. And you need this. Your balls”—and Thor’s hand went to them, his own lightly furred pink ball sack— “they’re so heavy. You feel me rubbing them”—the eager exhale—“and that goes right to your cock, doesn’t it? You know my hand could’ve squeezed, and maybe next time, it will, but the tease of it has your cock frenzied.”

In the suspense, Thor’s Cock sprouted a clear bead, a bead that broke into a thin stream down the long journey of his shaft. He still had a long way to go to get wetter than Loki.

“Knew you were going to torture me.”

“It’s your birthday. But don’t worry. I can’t let it go to waste. You feel my hand rubbing that sticky wet all over your cock, my palm barely polishing the head like it sends shivers down your spine. That tight, hot fist around you, stroking your cock — you don’t want it to stop.” 

“Don’t fucking stop. Fuck. So damned good. Keep fucking my cock, baby.” 

He hated “baby.” He’d hated “baby” when it didn’t come along with Thor’s cock head’s peek-a-boo over his flexing, desperate fist and Thor’s abs straining to give a boost to his cock into Loki’s imaginary one. Cushioned in all of that, “baby” kept Loki’s mouth going, demanding Thor to twist Loki’s imaginary hand around his cock and run Loki’s imaginary fingers down his frenulum.

“Lo — fuck, baby—”

“What? Are you going to cum, Thor?”

Thor’s levitating eyebrows said it all. He let out the most human noise that almost false started Loki into following after Thor’s white rockets, these thick jets of cum that reached toward the ceiling and crashed back down into pretty puddles over Thor’s ultra-flexed chest, onto his jeans and oh, what was that warmth on Loki’s hand?

It was white, and it was wet.

Thor slurred, collapsing back, eyes still shut, onto the couch.

“I have to use the bathroom,” he threw out.

The lick of the back of his hand was salty sweet and heaven.

Pants down, Loki went four fingers in and four fingers and a thumb around, and the sublimation of Thor’s cum through his tastebuds was the cue for Loki to orgasm in a burst of Roman candles on the flipside of his eyelids and in the tips of his body, his toes, his fingers, his cock. 

He caught his breath and a piece of reality — he had, as HR or their policy wouldn’t have approved, escorted his boss to orgasm.

He only made eye contact with his reflection after wiping the steam from his shower from the mirror. 

When he peeked out of the bedroom, Thor’s arm dangling slack off the couch branded him as sleep. After the MDMA, a miracle Loki didn’t disturb by putting a blanket on the come down would overheat him underneath.

It was bittersweet on his tongue coming to, sunrise and the sensation of being watched both trying to open up his eyes. But Loki stayed sleeping until Thor’s footfalls left the bedroom and he had run the various mornings after through his brain till everything and nothing was a possibility.

The “silt” they’d be serving in the hotel wouldn’t reach Thor’s standards, and ears tuned to the sound of any door action, Thor leaving to find coffee deserving of his palate allowed Loki to emerge into the sight of the open bedroom doorway and go downstairs for the curious handshakes goodbye that by every ounce of restraint in their bodies didn’t include “Where is Thor?”

Thor was in Loki’s gut practicing his fisher’s knots.

Because “why did you let that happen, Loki?” was at 90% likelihood. Calling in sick over a bug that’d manifested this morning would’ve only pushed it off and on top of that, been an open admission that it’d been “something.” Something HR-unapproved, something past boss-employee, the basic Thor-Loki.

Thor’d been the one that started it. Loki was not going to be the one that made this awkward.

His heart tried to take a downward exit at the text from Thor during a researcher’s closing remarks.

“ _Don_ _’t get too comfortable. Jet at Heathrow leaving for SF in 40.”_

And Thor would meet Loki there, having found the empty hotel room and emptied it a bit more of his bag.

40 minutes for Loki to get it together. Enough to pay a visit to the Harvard pharmacist. A little microdose of LSD wouldn’t hurt anyone.

#

“How were the goodbyes this morning?” Thor asked, not smug about having read the conference program, but there was potential there. Loki was positive he would’ve been if Thor hadn’t zip-tied himself to the idea of acting friendly — as far friendly went without their friend Molly.

Thor was reading _Popular Mechanics_. A laptop or tablet wouldn’t have given him the coverage to relax to having Loki directly across from him.

“Productive. I exchanged some emails with others who want to collaborate on research in the near-future,” he said. “How was yours?”

Thor conveniently focused on the magazine. “Good. Someone chased me down to tell me happy belated and explain how I’d convinced them to go into MechE. I offered them an internship. Pet a Corgi.”

“What more could someone who has everything ask for?”

The flight attendant collected his lunch order, surprisingly asking Loki about the conference that she’d accidentally overheard them talking about because she’d once wanted to be a chemist before she realized college didn’t agree with her. “Provable alchemy” was an easy hook to get the more theory-based material through the door, but Loki could’ve spoken to her at the Ph.D.-level and she would’ve been smiling and asking questions because he was fairly attractive after all.

Another attendant came to collect the order, concerned that disaster had happened.

“No, I’m just realizing that I might have to go back to school,” she said.

“If you’re ever on the market for a thesis adviser, my university email is widely available in Caltech’s directory.”

“But Loki’s a busy, busy man,” Thor said. “I’m trying to keep his hands full with me as long as I can.” That was the type of Nice that now 40-something people talked about in _60 Minutes_ specials about the serial killers they’d narrowly dodged succumbing to by subsequently fleeing for their lives.

The flight attendant followed their lead.

Thor retired the magazine for his coffee over which he watched Loki read research papers.

One could say it’d been quite the productive trip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Microdosing (at least in relation to Thor's size) Thor with MDMA to make him pleasant to be around/feel better, uh, is, you know, maybe definitely not advice to follow. But hey! Almost sorta kinda sex/something HR would vehemently disapprove of.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Glossary:  
> "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" is a tourism slogan  
> aural - ear  
> Getty Images - a resource for photographers to upload pictures for people to buy the rights to, where the iconic Getty Images watermarks come from   
> WWE - soap opera wrestling  
> Fisher Price - toy company  
> Sunday Night Smackdown - it's actually Friday Night Smackdown but Loki's being facetious; a WWE event

What happened in Vegas, stayed in Vegas. And if you weren’t in Vegas like you were supposed to be but in London, what happened in London stayed in London too.

Even if you had “aural” sex with your assistant. Because they had. After Thor’d professed his undying need for Loki, Loki had walked Thor through how to please the Cock, the orgasm no rare feat — the orgy mates and infinite others that’d been a hole or pole for Thor would’ve attested to that — but how Thor’d surrendered himself to Loki, that? That was unprecedented. Thor might as well have signed his soul over to Loki.

It’d be obvious to blame the MDMA for Thor “good morning” Loki without any cute pink creeping into his cheeks, but Molly didn’t deserve it. Thor was gray, cloudy gray compared to the charcoal his mood had been around Loki before, not insulting. One could almost call it professional, for Thor, not for HR. They’d never approve Loki spite-stroking in Thor’s sheets for Thor’s good night’s sleep.

“Good work” was a phrase from Thor’s mouth, yes, for Loki.

When Thor went back into his office, allotted a few seconds to breathe from Loki’s multitasking, his door didn’t frost.

This was absolutely not lasting. Good.

#

The WWE Champion from backgrounds of Getty Image-stamped pictures of Thor meeting presidents and kings was escorting Loki from afar.

It was LA, so there might have been other enormous, bald men with tattoos on their head, but the odds were little that any of them would’ve been lounging against a tree outside Caltech’s Mathematics building, and then, happening to be eating at the sandwich place across from the patisserie where mille-feuilles were going sympathetically “there, there” to Loki and his gaslit libido.

Loki knew he was being followed before he decided to take some back-alley shortcuts, but his back making the fast acquaintance of a brick wall courtesies of Sunday Night Smackdown left no room for doubt.

“You trying to get yourself killed, eh? Skid Row’s just around the damned corner.”

“How would I get hurt when you’d protect me?”

Thor’s occasional bodyguard remembered that he was supposed to be keeping a low-profile and thought about regretting, but also remembered that he didn’t quite give a shit. He did let Loki off the wall. “Guess I should’ve gone for the hat again. Got lazy. Happens to the best of us.”

“Again.” Loki’d had a feeling.

“The hat didn’t do much anyway,” Loki said, obviously having been in the know the entire time. Knowing the entire time as he clearly had relaxed him into inviting Skurge was his name — because of course, it was — to coo at snakes in an exotics store and trash talk Californian postcards in a tourist trap. Skurge also casually disclosed that he’d been on Loki duty before London following Loki “here and there on a grocery run,” but that he’d only started it full-time after London “when the boss got wound up about not knowing where the hell you’d skipped off to ‘cause you could’ve been kidnapped by a psycho murderer or some paranoid bullshit like that.”

“But I know how it goes,” said Skurge. “When you’ve got yours, you’ll do anything in your power to keep them safe, even from threats that don’t exist.”

Rather than correcting Skurge that Loki was not Thor’s possession like Thor seemed to believe too, Loki replied, “Girlfriend?”

“Nah. I did, but didn’t work out.”

“Congratulations on the freedom.” As Skurge knew firsthand, Loki couldn’t relate.

“So, what do you have on for the night?” Skurge asked as he considered how he’d look in those Versace sunglasses he held.

“I’m going to run simulations back on campus. Enthralling stuff. I bet you’re wondering why Thor has probably been asking you questions about what I do when he’s not breathing over my shoulder.”

“Well, I have express instructions to stop any ‘bad’ physical contact, keep you in the city. Use physical force if necessary and all that.”

“Because the ancient professors I touch the shoulders of are a threat.”

“I try not to ask about the orders. Tends to make my job more difficult than it needs to be.” In exchange for the sunglasses, Skurge handed over both his card and a spot of shit in the shop attendant’s underwear accidentally flashing his gun lifting his arm.

Thor had this man with a gun trying to protect Loki from ideas of absconding to places Thor wasn’t. Official confirmation: Thor knew he couldn’t live without Loki.

Thor’d “forgotten” everything but that from London.

Loki could’ve taken a wild guess that it wasn’t an old pal Skurge answered the phone still in Norwegian for. “Nothing eventful. He — no, he’s not met up with anyone. Does he look to be headed home? Well—” Skurge received a headshake from Loki. “No, I think he’s going to stay out a bit longer. Yep.” He hung up. “I go down I’m taking you with me.”

And he’d be taking Thor down with both of them.

“Deal.” Loki got Skurge’s number for emergencies.

#

A wild Thor appeared, wearing sweat as a shirt, the glorious uniform for working from home, and a look of pure “seriously?” that’d ignited when Loki hadn’t instantaneously heeded Thor’s unheard calls.

Loki slipped off his headphones, already relinquishing his comfort when Thor said so exasperated, “I was calling you,” as predicted — “My headphones are good,” Loki said, not sorry, because he wasn’t, though Thor didn’t care.

“I need you in the garage. Come on.”

The dimples above Thor’s butt took over staring Loki down for Thor’s eyes.

One of Thor’s pride and joys had their top off like their daddy, the Leiptr A4 spread-eagled like Thor’d forgotten that doors could be closed. The dementia had hit hard clearly because he’d forgotten that tools should’ve been picked up for Loki to not remodel his face on the cement ground via wrench.

“Looks like quite the party.” Level cleared, he took his victory joining Thor at the driver’s side.

Thor’s corona warned Loki, but Loki accidentally itched that scratch to have his person suck up some of that sweat, murmuring an “Oops” to Thor when he looked back.

Thor had too much precious sweat to notice some missing from his arm. He shifted a literal Loki-width aside to give Loki access to the driver’s seat, no small honor. “I need you to remove the speed limiters.”

Loki sat in one of Thor’s many thrones. The acolytes down in Design had engineered them in all Leiptr cars to accommodate the baseballs between Thor’s legs.

Thor hung on the roof in that casual one-arm way that Loki’s dick liked. But really, what didn’t Loki’s dick like that Thor did? A trick question. “They’re hard-coded. It’s to stop drivers from killing themselves doing 200. They left it off my A2, but they forgot this one.”

“Maybe, they’re trying to keep you around.”

That didn’t touch Thor because Thor was immortal. “This is your specialty. You gave Stark’s team another decade of championships in an hour.”

“30 minutes.” Loki waded himself into the aggressively user friendly UI of the console that came precoded with gutters to keep Leiptr’s loyal base on the straight and narrow road and not wrapped around a tree. No one that wasn’t getting their checks from “Leiptr Auto” was meant to venture into the less-than-sleek back end, but Loki got his from Thor, which was one in the same.

Loki’s phone caught Thor’s engaged reflection before the backlight washed it out. “Trying to gain intel on the enemy camp of technology by watching me?” 

Thor could never admit that his aversion for technology stemmed from teenaged blue screens of death and shutdown loops from accidental key combinations that his meaty fingers had jabbed. No. It was him “making sure you’re not stealing any proprietary information.”

That would’ve worked if Loki didn’t regularly, as in hourly, have a free-for-all to proprietary information, but to not scare Thor off, Loki let him have that.

“WiFi truly is the weak link,” Loki said as the console metamorphosed into his terminal form.

Thor’s shifted awkwardly in Loki’s periphery.

“You shouldn’t be worried. Most people that would try this can’t do what I can.”

“I know. Why do you think you’re here?”

“My ‘charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent’?” Loki quoted in English.

“Yes,” Thor, naively, replied in smug as Loki deleted those anti-death routines. “Your dick too.”

Well, Thor certainly had the mental reaction times. Hopefully he had the physical ones with free reign to burn out the car’s motor.

Smiling, Loki told Thor, “All done.”

Loki was being pushed by Hot toward the passenger side, the hand Thor had on his arm no coincidence, before Thor said, after the fact, “Scoot over.”

Thor tapped through the renewed Fisher Price UI to demonstrate convenience for him, enabling for the legions of Americans for whom getting out of the car to close the bonnet and the doors wouldn’t have hurt. What would’ve hurt them however? Careening around the spiraling Malibu roads. It would’ve hurt Loki too.

“You know,” said Loki, “I actually have to finish—”

Thor looked straight through the bullshit. “You weren’t scared with Stark.”

“Not that I’m scared, Stark had a shirt on, and we both had helmets.”

“You don’t need a helmet.”

“Thor, this car isn’t aerodynamically designed to go 150 let alone 250.”

Physics and safety ratings did not stop Thor from whipping the car out of the garage and pushing Loki through the seat with a pseudo-handbrake — because the Leiptr was beyond a handbrake — turn to dive bomb onto real street. Like there’d been that morning and last night and so on.

The trees went by faster, but this was a usual episode of Thor’s Grand Tour.

With bonus nudity.

Thor was too high on Forbes list and slaved away too long at the gym to think twice about getting out of the car at the taco shack that he pulled into. Shirts were a requirement for peasants that didn’t have Thor’s tits.

“You’re the one that does the spaceships,” said the cook, and then the other went, “Oh, right, right,” and you would’ve thought Thor was giving them the beautiful tacos with their grade school recess smiles. Thor’s trackies lacked pockets, but Loki also wore the hat of wallet, not that it was his money on the card that he handed over.

Thor asked as Loki signed the receipt, “Did I tip well?”

“We always tip well.”

The demigod visiting Earth he was, Thor enjoyed the 50 degree weather and seagull blue skies, not to be confused with the blue in Thor’s eyes, sat at the benches that had a different view of the ocean than he did.

It was a _New Yorker_ follow-up profile moment.

Thor eyed Loki’s phone as he chewed. “What are you doing?”

“Your PR is always lamenting that you don’t give them down to earth material to post to your social media. My last one was such a hit, so why not?” Loki grabbed a burst of Thor for the annals. He was becoming the Annie Leibovitz of candid Thor. “Don’t worry. I made sure you were pretty.”

With all seriousness, Thor looked back out at the ocean and said, “I’m always pretty.”

“It amazes me that you’re so humble.”

Thor absolutely mashed the brake in those turns, leaving Loki at the mercy of his seatbelt, as revenge for that.

#

“Photographer” was not on Loki’s resume, but Thor delegated Loki to go Poker Face behind a camera lens on his behalf over a vintage relic of mid-60s car lust. “I want to restore it, trade out the diesel for electric,” said Thor, a carry-on of the requisite day-stay in San Francisco supplies decorating his shoulder. “If it can handle it, that is.”

Despite Tony Stark’s outstanding offer, the glory of the James Bond-mobile, of which Thor had several already, not that Loki would protest another, didn’t jump out and seize Loki during the wistful sell by the human form of a plastic pink flamingo with various gold chains and gold rings. The car released its hold on the man to let him notice that Loki wasn’t awful to look at either, leading to an aborted offer for a “spin” that Loki declined. After Tony Stark, he’d keep his joy rides to Thor-driven only.

Mentioning this to Thor offhandedly, “He offered to give me a ride, but I figured only taking vintage rides from you was another invisible clause in my contract,” netted a look from Thor that should’ve been more common given the aural sex. Which Thor was clearly maintaining was no worse or better than sending Loki to take the pictures or having him read off his itinerary every morning.

“That picture I asked you to take of the car, can you send it?”

His pictures, plural, of the lost and forgotten Aston Martin ’66 e-type were freshly imported to his cloud, right at home with the well-composed photo of that first robe’s sash exploring the crevice of his ass and twat. When he multi-selected, his thumb slipped and selected that one along with the nicest five of the dozen or so of the Aston and as instructed, sent them to Thor.

“I took a few,” Loki said as Thor’s chat with him began to automatically scroll up with the newly arrived photos. “It’s better to have multiple angles.”

Thor was passively scanning until the eyebrows snapped together. Thor was positively staring into his phone.

“I assume they’re good?”

“Mm, you sent me something,” said Thor.

Loki took Thor’s silence for what it was meant to be and checked what he sent. He gasped. “Oh, shit. Oh, fuck, I — fuck, I absolutely did not mean to send that.” He was reaching for Thor’s phone, but Thor yanked it back. “Let me delete it for you—”

“I’ve seen as much of you as you have of me.” Thor speaking to Loki, not Thor’s genitals speaking to Loki’s genitals despite Thor’s intense, tingling-inducing focus on them. “Interesting use of the sash.”

“Well. There are more interesting uses.”

Thor’s eyes threatened, no, promised dreams of that desk biting into Loki’s thighs while Thor bent him over it and did whatever it was he pleased. “I didn’t know you took those sorts of pictures. Seems irresponsible.”

“How do you know I took them? It’s not like there’s a face or any identifying marks in them. But I’m sorry on behalf of whoever’s body that is that you had to see that.”

“Don’t apologize. The Aston pictures, they’re good.” Thor was thinking. “Do you send those to people?”

“No,” Loki very quickly said. “They’re for… personal use.”

“Send them to me. Whenever you take them, I want them. My orgasms have been shit lately. It’s driving me mad.”

“Er, I’m sorry to hear that?” Though the implication that Loki’s nudes were the panacea to Thor’s sexual woes — which in themselves might’ve had something to do with his birthday night — well, that wasn’t disappointing in the least.

Thor patted him on the arm like a proud football coach. “Thank you for the picture.”

Loki maintained that calm demeanor till Thor’s personal bathroom door locked.

He quickly showed himself to the restroom for mortals for a wank that turned his cerebrospinal fluid to unicorn blood and had him answering the phone with the energy of a Disney princess.

No “See you later” in the history of mankind was so laced with euphemism than Loki’s to Thor as he left for a dinner meeting that’d close out his day. Loki, employee of the lifetime, delivered Thor’s dessert off six-month-old ice, with an arched back, and two fingers in each hole presenting the flavors of his candy pink insides.

Thor Odinson, Stellar Conquistador, was stroking his celestial cock to the sight of Loki’s open asshole and twat, to the thought of conquering it like he’d do Mars and Neptune in-between re-uping the endless creampies keeping Loki’s holes meringued.

Both as thanks for the help to Loki’s hole trying to recreate the “filling” with his own in-house cream and as fulfillment of his job to assist Thor, the hand not holding his toothbrush sent Thor a good morning cumshot courtesies of last night, splattering Loki’s crossed thighs, cock, and knuckles.

Thor wasn’t only glowing with the sun when he waltzed into his office, shrugging off his jacket and all the worries in the world with it. “Great weather out there.”

It was as California as usual.

As Thor took his seat, his once over twinkled with the knowledge of what was under Loki’s clothes and how it turned that ridiculous pink when he rubbed himself the right way. “What does my day look like?” 

“Like you’ll be looking forward to the end of it, Mr. Odinson.” He didn’t catch Thor’s reaction because did he really need to?

#

“What kind of birth control are you on?”

Thor’s demolition derby of all boundaries had taken Loki’s tolerance for surprise to Mars. Considering Thor’s Cock was barely squirreled away by his pants at arm’s length, Loki paper-cutting his finger on Boeing’s CEO’s fake friendly Happy Holiday’s card passed for a non-reaction.

“Band-aid,” said Loki aloud as he got himself some space — theoretically, that was if Thor hadn’t followed him out to his desk.

The Christmas cards and “tokens of friendship” from Loki’s new nodes in the Upper Echelon weren’t high enough to wall-off Thor’s stare.

“You haven’t gone into heat the past six months.”

Loki cut off the circulation to his middle finger tip with the Band-aid. Like Thor’d — not shocked because Thor could never shock him but caught him orthogonally, Loki replied, “I have an implant in my arm that keeps heats in the dungeon for years at a time. Besides, I haven’t been in heat in decades.”

“Decades? That’s fucking mad.”

“Well, it’s more of a decade and some change. Regardless, is it crazy when I haven’t wanted to have children for just as long?”

“You don’t have to fuck anyone. And condoms exist. You don’t have to go into heat all the time, but once every other year, that’s reasonable. Take another few days off. Enjoy yourself.”

Loki returned to his spot on Thor’s couch, the epicenter of the corporate Christmas card storm. “Thank you for the tip, but my libido can’t really get any higher than it is.” Which Thor was acting like he didn’t know. As usual. “I do fine without the incessant sweating and inability to focus on someone above the neck. I’d think you’d agree seeing as how you haven’t been in rut this entire six months either.”

“For whatever reason, my body’s chosen not to. It’s hormonal. I’m healthy, so it’s not a problem, and I’m not worried. When it happens, it happens.”

Right, Loki plus birth control equaled no heat for Loki, and no heat for Loki equaled no rut for Thor because Loki’s endocrine system was Athena’s bridle to the Pegasus of Thor’s. To Thor who held his body’s natural and majestic processes sacred, Loki’s hormonal cockblocking kept Thor from progressing in the usual cycle of his greatness. Too bad there was nothing in it for Loki.

“Well, if worse comes to worse, you can get one of those shots that spontaneously induces it,” said Loki. “Seeing as how regularly getting your ruts is important to you. I could even schedule your doctor to administer it.”

“You should do that for yourself. A Christmas present from you to you.”

“Thank you for the idea, but I already have myself covered. Two words: cat cafe.”

Thor knew that he was jealous and comforted himself with the report of how well Q4 had gone for Leiptr, red-bottom shoes absently nodding along to a beat only Thor could hear beside the shrinking pile of read cards on the table. They were there doing little else, so Thor couldn’t be mad when Loki leaned some cards against one. That usually wouldn’t have stopped him from moving his foot and cascading his own ass’s corporate kisses onto the ground, but goodwill was Thor’s angle of trying to flip the switch on Loki’s rut wave generator.

“How about this?” said Thor, rising along with Loki and the completed box for Thor’s archive. He showed Loki his palm, his heart lines to Mars, like Loki needed to brace himself. “Do you remember that professor we saw at the conference? The one you hated? I will endow his chair. In your name. All I ask in return is for you to go into heat sometime soon.”

As salacious as the pride that asshole would have to swallow whole would've been, the fact that Thor thought Loki’s price would be so low, so attainable, it pulled Loki’s head to the side at the angle of condescension. “I’ll tell you what. I will go into heat at a time of your choice if you shave your head and donate it all to charity.”

Thor was smiling because his brain had gotten stuck on that expression. “No.”

“No?”

“No,” said Thor and the glare that his face unfroze for. “I’m not fucking cutting my hair. That’s — no.”

“Too bad then. I guess you’ll have to wait for nature to take its course.” It was his turn to smile, jovially carrying the read stack out of Thor’s office for Thor to have his temper tantrum in peace.

Thor, on behalf of his hair, did not bring the topic up again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Thor wears Louboutins, and he uses them to continue to walk all over HR. Poor lads have no idea how bad it is.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for my lateness! Life did that thing where it kept me busy with survival-related things, but I am back. With Chrimbus!
> 
> Glossary:  
> MJK - Norwegian special forces  
> Flat Earth Society - group of people that think both jokingly and not that the world is flat

Thor was cosplaying as Santa for his Holiday tour from shelters, orphanages to Leiptr and SpaceA’s Christmas parties. “Acquiring velvet pants and jackets lined with vegan llama fur” and “a Hollywood special effects hair and make-up team” were now skills of Loki’s.

“‘What do billionaires do for fun?’” Loki wondered aloud as Thor, absurdly, texted — which surprisingly with Thor was not the absurd part — in his full stupid, sexy Santa look in his house’s foyer. “‘Base-jump off La Tour Eiffel? Buy supercars to race cheetahs?’ No, they dress-up like Santa Claus.”

“It’s for a good cause.” Thor’s phone went into the pocket of his red, light-weave velvet jacket, so his hands could “adjust” – play with – the long, white beard flash-forwarding to Thor in 40-odd years. As climbable then as some generous god made him now. 

While climbability not as internationally canonized, judging by Thor’s once-overs below the llama fur lining at the bottom of his cap, Loki’s could not be tamed by his green Santa sock cap and first of a spree of pretty-ugly Christmas sweaters. The fact that this one had been the special guest in Loki’s Nth Day of Christmas Gift this morning involving a star-shaped buttplug had nothing whatsoever to do with that.

“I’ll get you a sweater next year,” said Loki. “Since you clearly enjoy this one so much.”

“It’s… interesting.” -ly well-suited for Loki’s body, yes.

Christmas tree flags, a touch Loki proudly claimed, waved on the Leiptr roadster Thor ignored speed limits in. Thor’s Ray-Bans had a green iridescent sheen too. Loki was damned good.

See the awe jumping up and down and screaming for Thor from the knee-highs that life, despite its best efforts, hadn’t stolen Santa from and the chest-highs with YouTube and Instagram clips of Thor painting the future’s picture playing in their minds to lean into the spirit of Space Santa Thor. Thor’s borrowed Hollywood costume couldn’t join forces with Thor’s natural charisma to have kids grinning hugging him and telling him that they wanted to be astronauts and to have adults shaking his hand and answering Thor’s genuine how are yous with smiles.

Yes, it was 70/30 — maybe 80/20 for Thor to costume, but still, Loki’s name was on the hot cocoa-y joy that was Thor’s kilometer radius.

Plus the glowing Thor in the middle. Loki’s gooey good mornings in his Christmas sweaters had friends in coke and adrenaline. 

The planets were aligning so well for Thor that it wouldn’t have beyond belief for him to trigger Loki into some fantastical spontaneous heat by holding chubby-cheeked babies and actually kneeling down to tie the shoe some little Skittle shyly asked Thor to. 

“Is that the beard doing a good job masking your discomfort being around kids,” Loki asked Thor, “or are you finally realizing they’re just outrageously small people?”

“If you’re good at kids, it has to be easy for me to be too.”

“‘Good at kids.’ I’m fantastic at kids.”

“Proof?”

Loki gave Thor a stare. “Did you snort some of that craft glitter in there?”

Thor hadn’t — fortunately for various Caltech administrators not getting threatening phone calls from him over a mandatory meeting Loki had with his Ph.D. adviser scheduled for Company Christmas Party Day. “Well, after you finish up, I expect you at the party.”

“Aye, aye, Father Christmas.”

Alongside his shopping for the flags and Thor’s costume, Loki’d picked up a faux Reindeer fur coat here and a pair of leather brown pants there to do his part as Santa’s Little Helper. After affirming his next two — three in the system — years at Caltech, Loki owed more than an obnoxious Christmas sweater to himself.

The fuzzy LED red nose led Loki into the Christmas carols, warm nutmeg, and realistic fake evergreens crowding HQ. Open office doors and the grins and shredded, crisp, bright silver wrapping paper Loki’d ordered a kilometer for the professional gift wrappers acted as “Thor was here”s, a trail for Loki to follow to aeronautics and the heavy, red gift bag disappearing through a doorway.

Mild-mannered scientists evolved into clapping, squealing five-year-olds for Thor handing them gifts. The astonishment of Thor knowing their names neutralized any thoughts of how, like, say, a photo roster he looked at before each department, and if they wanted a hug, this was their one-in-a-year chance for a Thor hug.

Thor glanced over to Loki. He wasn’t slow with his “Happy Holiday” to them.

“Look at our fearless leader spreading holiday cheer,” said Loki.

Thor’s hand landed on Loki’s upper arm and shared the wealth down it, petting Loki. “You did dress-up.”

“You didn’t expect anything less.”

Thor looked at Loki’s antlers. “I expected elf.”

“I’m not as tall as you, but I, too, pass up low-hanging fruit.” He gave his fingertips some velvet passing by Thor. “I’m here now to guide you, Santa.”

Thor appreciated the constancy of Loki’s highly-acclaimed commentary on the miracles Thor was working by mining the Halo Effect as a fuel source. Thor’s charisma was going to put humanity on Mars. Thor didn’t need to be handing out Patek Philippe wristwatches with SpaceA faces and century-old French wine for them to love him, but he couldn’t siphon off the contentment from them liking him like he could from their grins.

“I like to see people happy,” said Thor during his walk of pride to their waiting ride to the next stop in Thor’s Generosity tour. “None of this matters if I can’t share the happiness.”

“Then, am I the exception?”

“Yes. You are.”

He huffed, and Thor rubbed a tip of Loki’s antler till Loki ducked away from him and into the car. Generosity was a two-way street Thor had come to realize when Loki held his coat below his ass, his ass in leather pants, as he boarded the jet ahead of Thor. Never one to learn a lesson too soon, Thor maintained his smugness, not passing up the opportunity to lord Loki’s lack of access to the Union of Thor as soon as possible by handing a gift to his usual San Francisco driver.

Yes, yes. Loki received an endless gift that repaid him monetarily and spiritually by being allowed in Thor’s presence or so it went. Lies.

Thor could try to placate Loki, but Loki was burdened with his gift because he was the only human being in the world that wouldn’t burst into a pile of rainbow confetti with this much exposure to Thor. Even esteemed academics lifted their hands in divine praise when presented with Thor.

Erik would be a little fanboy.

Loki peeled from Thor’s shadow, and Erik’s fellatio paused, the shock of Loki even more potent. “Dr. Selvig, you’ve come a long way from MIT.”

“Loki.” He tried to pretend his soul wasn’t aflame. He couldn’t have Thor thinking less of him. “I could say the same of you.”

“I go wherever he goes these days,” Loki replied. 

“I guess no one’s life can be perfect,” Erik told Thor, chuckling to not cry.

Thor looked between them, Erik with his rumpled existence and Loki here with his glowing nose as cool as can be. He bestowed Erik with his gift, specifically requested by Erik because Thor played favorites, not that anyone would call him out on it, anyone but Loki or Bruce or his mother. The gift, an expedition to the North Pole. “Stay safe, my friend.”

“Right,” Loki echoed. “Climate change has wreaked havoc on polar bear diets, and I’ve heard that they’ll pick up a scent and follow it for hundreds of kilometers to camps, doctor.”

The force turning him around was Thor’s hand.

“It was nice seeing you, doctor.”

It was not Loki’s fault that Dr. Selvig took Loki’s intensity and commitment to knowledge as being “psychotic” and “serial killer-like.”

“I need him alive,” Thor said. “He’s the best in the world.”

“Yet you’re sending him to the North Pole. It sure sounds like you’re very concerned about his well-being.”

“It won’t matter if he dies of a heart attack before he leaves.”

“That would be —” He stopped himself at Thor’s glare. “Unfortunate for the future of renewable energy.”

Thor rewarded him for his contribution by deserting him at the aerodynamics department’s refreshment table. But the joke was on him because nothing paired better with scaring a paranoid, tattletale professor than a cup of eggnog and the drool gathering at the mouths of the engineers as Loki explained his work with complex simulations.

A few Leiptr B2-shaped gingerbread man cookies tagged along with Loki onto the flight back to LA.

As Thor got to his seat, he forgot to turn off his glee and accidentally aimed some at Loki as he relished the feeling of accomplishment emanating from his perfect-sized pores.

“I thought I sensed a buzz in the car.”

“An employee insisted we share a drink of the rum I bought him. I’ve never turned down a drink.”

“Unsurprisingly.”

The air exhale laugh. His hand patted his thigh. “Come take a seat.”

Loki’s jaw forgot how to chew the last of the cookie. It resumed if only to occupy his brain with doing something, something familiar. “And, what? Tell Santa what I want for Christmas?”

“Something like that.”

With a throat clear to remove the danger of choking on any stray crumbs, Loki traded this seat in for the just as firm but infinitely warmer, admittedly intimidating feel of Thor’s thighs. He couldn’t half-ass it, through his arm donated his petty weight to Thor’s chest and toed off his boots to pull the leg closest to Thor up between his thighs and Thor’s, a small sacrifice to have this snowy beard and temporary white dye frosting his left-out hair framing Thor’s pleasure in 4k HD. “What is your favorite Christmas memory?”

The five-pronged brand on Loki’s back was Thor’s returning hand. “Ever?”

“Ever.”

Thor left space for Loki to jump in and reel back the closeness like the fawning journalists pretending to pry would, but he didn’t get off that easy. “Well, when I was 11, there was a Christmas my father wasn’t supposed to make it. The first one he would’ve missed ever. You know, he made airplanes — general aviation, and that year they were swamped with orders. He’d try to be home by New Years, but we understood. Then, a snowstorm decided to hit.”

“Gasp.”

“Yeah. That was the feeling in our house. My father was my hero. Not that surprising. But I knew he’d make it. Mother tried to shut me up when I told all the family we had there that he would be there tomorrow for Christmas. She didn’t want them to think I didn’t appreciate having them there. I did, but he was dad.” There it was, the look all sons and daughters of half-decent fathers had in archive for the Super 8 film reel of Catch and _Goodnight Moon_.

“Christmas goes by with no sign of him. We’ve opened gifts, ventured outside into the snow, had dinner. My cousin tells me ‘see, you were wrong.’ We argue. I rough him up a bit. Get separated. And right when Mom is telling us to apologize to one another, you hear it. The sound of an engine. I run out of there, out onto the back porch, and it’s a single-engine. It comes down on the runway — at least where it would be under the snow, and I’m running out there in just my sweater, tripping in the snow. I remember him taking off his jacket to put it on me while I hugged him. I didn’t feel the cold though. I only felt happy.”

Helblindi and Býleistr wrapping themselves around their father’s legs when he came home early Christmas morning, late Christmas Eve night, only to be sent back to bed giggling, their giggling drifting back down the stairs turning the accusations against Loki’s abilities to look after them into dust.

“I bet your cousin hates you,” Loki said.

“But he knows more than he might that I have good judgment, which is why he works for me.” 

“A kindred spirit.”

As Thor remembered that, ah, yes, Loki was irritating, Loki adjusted in his new chair to lie against Thor’s shoulder, a direct supply to an LD50 dose of Thor-agra. He kept his breaths to a minimum.

“What’s yours?” Thor asked. Loki’s best Christmas memory he meant.

“Aren’t I the one that asks you for things?”

“Let me rephrase. Tell me your favorite Christmas memory.”

Fine. “9 years old. I was with my mother that Christmas.” She’d insisted, told his father she was done with him using the kids in his Chess game, which Loki didn’t tell Thor. He told him about how she lived on the water, and for kids, that was glorious. Loki’d learned how to sail when he was young and unsurprisingly, so had Thor, and he had his stories about how amazing he was at that like everything else, except when he fell overboard tugged by a sea turtle who’d caught his line or ended up attacked by a seagull. You wouldn’t have found that on his fan Tumblrs, or just the few of the many, many camping trips gone awry that disembarking and the stunningly short drive to Thor’s had time for.

“Stay over. It’s fine,” said Thor when Loki didn’t follow him out the car. He hung in the open door frame, a sight as the hottest Santa ever, and the temptation to check this item off Thor’s wish list tugged at Loki, tugged hard at particular parts of him, but Loki smoothed his seatbelt and replied, “It’s 12:16, and I have the next two days off, Mr. Odinson.” 

Thor’s eyes pinched. “Yes. You do.” The ambivalence slotted back into place. “I won’t see you Christmas, so enjoy yours.”

“Merry Christmas to you too, Thor.”

Thor moved for the driver to shut the door between them, but Thor didn’t move again from that spot at the bottom of his stairs that Loki saw.

#

A 4 am phone call demanding “Get to LAX now” from Býleistr dragged Loki down to the terminal to witness the red bow glinting in the fried lights on his little brother’s hard head.

“Who just won Christmas?”

“Hel,” Loki said. “He wins by default. His gift can’t possibly be worse than this.”

Býleistr wouldn’t stop spinning Loki as a greeting until his knees literally didn’t allow him to, and then, he’d be hauling Loki into his wheelchair to spin him, the maniac. The perfume of some flight attendant was in the company of Býleistr’s warm, fresh laundry, and Loki commended him for not yet falling for it from some walking tattoo whose back wind made his peepee hard. “I told you, bro. I’m escaping my 20s unscathed.”

Unlike their dear little brother Helblindi who, as told by Hel several days ago in a text in the middle of a meeting that earned Loki a glare from Thor — who would not have known if he wasn't looking over Loki’s shoulder and instead of watching his employee speaking — was sacrificing his holidays to the nerdy yin to his dorky yang in Germany of all places. “We met,” said Býleistr, forgoing the fact that he absolutely dropped in on Hel in London with zero warning. “She’s like the chick from _Princess Diaries_ but before she got the make-over.”

They were in Loki’s kitchen as Loki prepared the earliest, non-coke-fueled pancakes and bacon in Los Angeles.

“She may be beta, but if she makes him happy without harming him — non-consensually — I’m not catching a flight to London to return some sense into him.”

Býleistr went quiet under the crackle of the bacon. “So, who’s the guy all over you?”

His plan to take a shower when he went to bed was fucked by the fact that he’d never gone to bed.

“What guy?”

“The nose doesn’t lie. You smell like… I don’t know.”

“Vivid.”

“But it’s alpha as fuck.”

“Oh.” Loki casually glanced back at him. “That’s my boss.”

“What math nerd smells like that?”

“No.” Loki sighed as he slipped bacon onto the dripping rack. “I have an outside job.”

“Dude, if you need—”

“Because I needed to stay busy. Ph.Ds. are boring business. There was an opening nearby as an assistant, and unsurprisingly, I was hired.”

“You are someone’s assistant.”

“The best assistant ever known.”

Býleistr deserved the burn from grabbing at hot bacon. “This guy’s gotta be fucking looney.”

Loki wouldn’t disagree.

Thor remained stage-left in the topic of conversation as Loki regaled Býleistr in the tens of thousands of fliers miles he’d picked up in the past few months, the _Forbes_ covers and VIPs — or “The pricks responsible for the shit world” as Býleistr described them — and fantasy showers he’d met. But none of that piqued Býleistr’s interest like Loki’s trip to Stark HQ. Or that Loki’d been in the bowels of Stark F1.

“Why didn’t you try to pull him? You’re good-looking to betas too.”

Because Thor but Loki skipped that and mentioned that Tony was getting married, and he’d not like to cross the woman who managed to temper Tony Stark.

Besides Loki’s Stark story, there was the line-skip-reservation combo at some trendy French restaurant on Sunset Boulevard the card with “Thor Odinson” granted them. Býleistr was too engrossed in the waitresses’ curves to notice the name, only dedicated a fraction of his cheers of the best wine the house had to Loki’s “crazy boss” with the rest going to Loki.

Býleistr’s open and aggressive contentment at the state of Loki’s life patronized Loki more than Loki liked, but Loki took it over Býleistr’s constant questions of when Loki would “find something that actually made him happy” like it was a treasure out there waiting to be unearthed and Loki was just lazy. Býleistr had been one of the lucky few to find his station right out the gate, his bespoke fit to the Navy a lot like Thor’s in World Saving, and Loki was happier for him than he used to be worried that Býleistr had hogged most of the luck for their family and Hel had claimed the last of it.

“Merry Christmas, dickheads” warmed Loki’s heart coming from Hel during a midnight Facetime. Both Hel and Býleistr had failed to mention that Hel’s significant other was also significantly older, as in it’d be the same if she were dating Thor. But the little asshole couldn’t stop wrapping himself around her, and she had a Ph.D. and was pretty and enabled Hel’s neediness a healthy amount. Loki tentatively approved.

Býleistr invited them to LA before the New Year’s — asking Loki if it was “cool” seconds after asking — and Loki could get on board with that, a closer inspection.

Thor would’ve approved of the motivation.

Christmas, real, waking Christmas had Norway and Thor’s brood already in its bosom. Thor wistfully watching his little cousins open his model rocket gifts under the watch of his bigger cousins, remembering when it was him and his father, but his mother wouldn’t be far to hug him and reminisce. He didn’t need a Merry Christmas from Loki right now.

The “Flat Earth Society” sweatshirt in tens of thousands of dollars of Vicuna wool should’ve sufficed.

While Loki could only imagine the reaction to that, his brother had the mindfulness to bring along the gifts Loki had mailed him to have them to open: the silk boxers and the keys to a Leiptr A4 waiting for pick-up back in Oslo.

“You bought me an electric fucking car.”

“The environment, Lei. Think of the environment.” 

He half-expected a Leiptr, one at 1:6 scale, in the box wrapped in Thor’s favorite silver paper, but all he got was an insulated coffee cup printed “Caltech SpaceA Division of Computer + Mathematic Sciences.” 

Býleistr didn’t understand what was so funny. Loki didn’t bother trying to explain.

After an appropriate amount of time (13 hours post-opening, Boxing Day morning in Norway), Loki told Thor, _“Thanks for the wine glass_.”

The reply ellipses didn’t take their time.

_“And thanks for the rag to wash my car.”_

_“The shirt to scare your one-night stands off when they want breakfast.”_

Thor plain old calling vibrated his phone.

“Lei, I’m going to change,” he called to his brother watching football and took his call into his bedroom. At the last ring and after getting himself comfortable lying on his bed, he answered.

“Enjoy Christmas?”

“It could’ve been far worse, and I’m pleased with where it is, yes. Did you?”

“Good. Mom sends her best and a Merry Christmas. She liked your card.”

“Oh.” He sent that because he’d been at the card shop and why not, expecting it to be thrown aside. “That’s good.”

“She thinks you’re trying to win her over.”

“If she likes me, she’ll share with me embarrassing stories from your childhood, and then, I can tell her about you missing your mouth with your coffee once a week.”

“A month, once a month.”

“If you’re taking a lifetime average, sure,” he replied. “How is it going being the coolest, richest cousin of them all?”

Like all things Thor, it was going fantastically. He didn’t need the Santa Claus suit to continue spreading Christmas cheer and sowing resentment in his cohort cousins and the misc aunts and uncles that Thor swore was all in Loki’s cynical head. “It sounds like you’re not in the Christmas spirit, Loki.”

“There wasn’t much room for it. The entity that possessed me long ago doesn’t like sharing.”

“Or you know if you open up to let something else in, it’ll finally escape to a better, happier place.”

“That too of course,” he replied. “So, are you going to wear my shirt today?”

“Stock prices would tank if I wore that shirt out.”

“No one body should have all that power.”

“You would know.”

Right. Loki’d neglected his morning telegram.

The principle of it bugged Thor more than any genuine reliance, which there was minimal of, on Loki’s dick pics.

“Poor Mr. Odinson. He had to have a wank using his imagination. The horror.”

“Didn’t even bother. Better to wait, to hear your voice.” A hum crackled the receiver. “I’m so fucking hard already. What your voice alone does to me.”

Centerstage, illuminated by the spotlight of Loki’s entire world: the Cock, filler of holes, destroyer of walls, stood tall and proud, gorged on not just anyone’s tribute but Loki’s. What an honor.

“Are you touching yourself?”

Loki said, like he should not have, “Where would you like me to be touching myself?”

“Touch your cock.” No beating around the tastefully-trimmed bush there. “Show me how hard you are.”

Touching his fucking pubic hair made his toes curl. “I can’t. My hands are a bit… busy.”

“What I’d do to you if you were here.” The “fuck”-factor of his words carried over into him just exhaling. “Knew I should’ve brought you home with me.”

“Suppose if you had, what would you be doing to me?”

“What wouldn’t I? We wouldn’t leave this room. Tease you for hours and hours, have you aching hard, soaking your underwear through. Pinch your lovely nipples, leave my mouth all over, and you wouldn’t say a thing because you always want to win. But then, I’d… I’d make you tell me what you wanted. What do you want, Loki? Do you want to get on your knees, milk my balls dry?”

“Just like you want me to. You know how good I look on my knees for you. All of those times, dropping pens and papers for me to pick up for a hint of what I’d look like waiting to swallow your cock.”

“You’re gagging for it, gorgeous. Fuck, that mouth of yours.”

“Only a hole you’ve been dreaming your entire life for. Your thick fingers winding through my hair, half-keeping me in place while you meet my mouth halfway and half-holding onto my skull for dear life because you can barely take the sensation of me trying to swallow the head of your cock.” That breathy thing supplied him air he’d forgotten to inhale. “You thought you were going to just fuck my mouth, but I’m staring up at into your eyes through the tears, and you don’t know what’s more of a turn-on — the feeling of my tongue and my cheeks and my throat or that I’m willing to suffocate to have your cum.”

“Loki—"

“It’s so messy, Thor. My spit and some of your precum all over my chin. Do you like that?”

“Love it. Love it so much, baby.”

“I know you do. That look on your face — you’ve never been this desperate for it, have you? To have your cock sucked?”

“Yes. Fuck. Fucking my cock down your throat. You’re fucking perfect at this. My little cocksucker.”

“You’re so close, aren’t you? I can feel it, feel your cock beating when I run my mouth all over it. This big cock is going to give me such a big load, isn’t it?”

“Oh, fuck. Baby — fuck, I’m going to cum. Fucking cum in your mouth, baby.” 

“I want it, Thor. I want you to feed me all of your cum.”

Thor’s deep, beautiful agony was the trigger word for the nuclear detonation of Loki’s nerves, every muscle coordinating for the clench and release that would’ve been that much better with resistance inside of him, but until the phone had fallen to the pillow, his other hand had been otherwise occupied. 

Those few centimeters of distance allowed perspective to slither its way in and remind him that hey, that was his boss panting on the other end, his boss with who he’d had a semi-synchronized orgasm with after some phone sex. The boss that would resolutely pretend this never happened until he needed it again.

The consummate professional he was, he put on his big boy voice to ask, “So, I’ll see you tomorrow?”

A steadying breath from Thor. “Yeah,” he said, flatly and quietly. “Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The call ended.

Nothing like rapidly cooling cum on your stomach to reinforce the question part of a questionable decision. That should’ve been Loki’s middle name at this point.

Loki had a hot shower before he changed.

“How’s your sugar daddy?” asked Býleistr. He cheesed, but he wasn’t anymore when he realized that the glass of hot cocoa Loki put back on the table was now empty. He demanded cuddles from Loki for that.

His brother was always a good cuddler.

#

Býleistr shouted that he had the door.

Loki continued having the cinnamon rolls that needed iced. “Who is it?”

“The rocket cunt!”

Which Býleistr had said to the aforementioned “rocket cunt’s” face. Brilliant.

Loki icinged that last roll with the perfection deserving of the probable death he would’ve condemned Býleistr to had he not arrived to martyr himself to Thor’s stare, the stare that this idiot was extra sharp cheesing at. And you knew Býleistr hadn’t even thought to introduce himself. “You should’ve packed those manners I taught you alongside your vape pen in your carry-on.”

Býleistr suffered a hair ruffle and cheek kiss, which unlike Hel, he was not so ungrateful to complain at, as punishment.

“Thor,” Loki said for his brother, “this is Býleistr. Býleistr, as you’re aware from the few times you’ve stopped on the news before the sports channels, this is Thor Odinson, my boss.” That taken care of, Loki shoved Býleistr in the direction of the kitchen to go stuff his mouth to keep anything else stupid at bay for the interim.

Thor used the empty space to remind Loki that his scent was a Viagra analog.

“Right. Come in.”

“He’s staying here.” Was that an accusation or an observation? “Because…” The line loitering between his eyebrows smoothed away. “Because he’s your brother.” This smile of Thor’s was overjoyed.

It was safe to say Skurge had gotten Christmas off then.

“Please, stop reminding me.”

Thor took pleasure in Loki’s pain and now that the ample opportunities to mine some fresh from Býleistr had unfurled, Thor was eager to join Býleistr in the kitchen. “So, Býleistr, you came to see your brother.”

Býleistr wasn’t interrupting his chewing for Thor. “He turned down Mom because he said the flight was too long — total BS —”

“Of course, it is.”

“—but I couldn’t have my bro miserable out here in the heat. I’ve never been here, haven’t seen him in too long, was the clear choice.”

“Plus, it’s a new pool of women, many of who walk around with more skin showing than covered,” Loki said.

“That’s just bonus stuff.” Býleistr put a hand on Loki’s shoulder as Loki peeled apart a warm cinnamon roll, a piece of which he offered, successfully, to Thor. “Until Loki settles down with the most perfect dude in the world or Tony Stark, whichever comes first, I have to hold him down.”

“Tony Stark,” said Thor with a full mouth.

“He’s a Stark fanboy, and I told him the story,” Loki said.

“He’s a little short for Lo, but he’s rich as fuck and smart like Lo likes, and the guy’s making amazing moves.”

“He says to the person that’s going to get humans to Mars.”

“Wait. Right. I remember reading about that. That’s fucking crazy. Lokes, I swear you’ve got the power to get involved in mind-blowing shit. I mean, what the fuck is chaos theory?”

Thor started talking, “Well—”

“No, I was just saying. He’s explained it like five times to me. I don’t need to know what it is. Shit, I mentioned what he did to a commanding officer, and they go, ‘We leave that to the universities to figure out and come collect plain Norwegian at the end.’ And here Loki is getting a Ph.D. in it.”

“You’re in the military?”

“Navy, baby. MJK.”

“You’re shitting me?” Thor never asked about any of Loki’s schooling like he did Býleistr’s super cool, action movie hijinks in the special navy forces.

Loki left Thor to complete his intense hand job on Býleistr, unlike them both, cognizant of social decorum. That said, 30 minutes before he at least was due in the office, he went up to his brother and hugged and kissed him goodbye and told Thor that he would see him at the office.

“What, Lolo, you’re leaving me?”

He rolled his eyes. “Don’t bring any women back here. If you must, get a hotel. I will pay the bill.”

“Or just go to the Marmont and tell them ‘Thomas Edison’,” said Thor. In direct antithesis to his and Loki’s fateful first meeting, Thor expressed how great it was to meet Býleistr and ensured to say that he’d see him later, certain.

Now, for the pressing concern: what else they talked about.

“Nothing that’d be of much interest to you,” he said without an ounce of irony. “You used to carry around a stuffed wolf till you were seven and only ate green food for a year once. He cares too much about you to tell me the real dirt.”

“He’s also terrified of me.”

Thor paused at the driver’s side. “He shit-talked electric and asked if I could arrange a trade-in for your gift.”

“That little twerp.”

“0 to 60 in 2.4 seemed to change his mind.”

Unlike the last occasion he was alone with Thor in a mode of transport after sharing an orgasm with him, Thor didn’t default to hyperplatonic friendliness as a measure of restraining Loki at arm’s length. It’d been a gift. The aural sex in-person and not, Loki’s version of a bouquet of peonies someone might get their extra special boss. It wasn’t worth discussion, not when it’d happen only every so often, you know, birthdays, holidays. 

Did Thor celebrate New Year’s Eve? He struck Loki as someone that celebrated New Year’s Eve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof, don't let HR tap a phone line.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Freshly emerged from a long, strenuous battle with technology and software and done the no-no thing of turning off OS updates 9ever, I'm back and able to access the two-month-plus inaccessible text files of my fics! Shoutout to Microsoft Word which I've gone back to as of today. I'll never doubt you again, baybee! 
> 
> Where were we? Right! It's Winter "break" in Secretaryland.

Disclosing that he was off to spread this morning’s saved liquid gift for Thor all over Thor’s sheets to Býleistr would’ve ruined Býleistr’s newfound fondness for Thor, yes, but it’d have also resulted in a double murder. Loki told Býleistr he had “matters” to discuss with Thor.

Býleistr didn’t ask because Býleistr didn’t care about matters that weren’t adding to last night’s new, unsurprisingly female friends. He wasn’t equal opportunity like Thor.

Being that it’d have been Loki’s luck to witness the aftermath of Thor’s latest bout of group love, Loki had to gather himself before he reached forward and grabbed Thor’s front door handle.

Thor had left his front door unlocked but wasn’t there to escort Loki to and from the stairs which pointed toward the cold open of a true crime show, but Thor was immortal and made of gold and had the third largest active army in his Thor Cultists. He wouldn’t be harmed. Loki knew this. He knew this yet his heartrate went from a waltz to a mambo like Thor wasn’t simply getting comfortable with this arrangement and off sipping orange juice on the balcony.

One of the voices that drifted to him was Thor’s – one of them. The other, Loki couldn’t place her from any sultry taglines from _Victoria Secret_ ads or blockbuster movies. 

He could’ve gone up the stairs. They were in Thor’s kitchen. It sacrificed a view of the rest of the house for one of the ocean.

But Loki had met so few celebrities during his time in LA. 

He’d never seen her in any movies, but you could be sure he’d seen her in the orange space suit holding the helmet on Norwegian-language news commemorating the first Norwegian astronaut. She hadn’t gotten lucky on the vision test because her eyes darted straight from Thor to him the moment he came into her field of view.

Thor hadn’t noticed she’d stopped looking and kept talking.

Sif held up a hand. Thor stopped like she’d trained him to. “You must be Loki.”

Now, Thor turned away from Sif.

He could see why Thor would have trouble. “Impressed” had been the first thought seeing those headlines a few years ago, but “beautiful” had been in the mix of the ones that had come after. And Sif wasn’t just photogenic.

“I was investigating whether I’d be free from the job because someone had broken in and murdered Thor.”

“If only we would be so lucky.”

“I love you too. Sif, like you’re aware, this is Loki. Loki, I don’t know—”

“I do.” He led with the hand, and Sif met it with hers. “Five-year-old me who used to wear a fish bowl and tin foil and pretend to be an astronaut is hyperventilating right now. You’ve actually been to space.”

What the hell did 50 Ph.Ds. matter compared to outer fucking space?

“Don’t you have something you should be doing?” Thor asked.

That was Thor’s angle — that Loki was an employee lacking in professionalism as usual. He couldn’t have the streams crossing. You didn’t introduce your future wife to your fucking waifu pillow.

This morning, Loki’d put in effort in lighting his pussy lips for his morning refreshment to Thor only for it to have been, what, swiped aside in Thor’s pocket as he impatiently waited for Sif to meet him on the tarmac.

“It was nice meeting you, Sif.” He dutifully went upstairs onto the sheets replacing those covered in Sif who’d be deleting these reminders from Loki’s calendar in weeks, and Loki, as professional as Thor was expecting of him, limply flung himself onto the bed to roll around a few times, and he was done.

If Thor hadn’t wanted him to bother with hello, why bother with goodbye?

“I’m leaving after lunch” did not qualify as Thor making up for his missed hello or the good morning he was bypassing. “Clear everything after noon for the next three days.”

Until New Years.

As Loki threw the meetings into the digital ether, he asked, “Is that how long Sif is staying?”

Who knew a benign question could annoy Thor? “Yes.”

Thor’s door frosted because he locked it behind him.

Helblindi’s text of _“Snowstorm. Won’t make it for NYE. RIP”_ was dropped off by the cosmic balance to Loki. One dearest Sif to Thor in exchange for Hel from Loki. Loki’s sacrifice was for a good cause though, right?

When Thor left to go home to Sif, Loki told him to have a good day because Loki was a fucking professional.

#

Sif and Thor had gone to the same secondary school. Loki happened to be researching more about a Norwegian historical figure like the patriotic Norwegian he was deep-down, and the information had drawn the connections between her and Thor, not any keystrokes by Loki’s fingers. The facts knew of Sif and Thor and Thor and Sif.

She’d been an elbow for Thor to hold at fundraisers and galas. Thor pulled out the teeth for her. Sif got the teeth. Loki wouldn’t get the teeth. Loki hadn’t met Thor in the throes of puberty and had the heavens open up above him as new romantic eighties music played in Thor’s head.

Sif was the Mary Magdalene to Thor’s Space Jesus. Sif, the second half of the beginning of the dream come true Thor had been to Norway, not as blonde and blue-eyed as him, but Sif turned sexist journalists to stone with a stare, and Sif would look good as a bronze statue in a town square in Oslo a century from now after Thor led them all to Mars.

Four days. Thor might as well have gotten down on one knee and asked her to complete the fairytale since he was in love with her. Sif hadn’t come up once, and she showed up, and Thor contorted himself like no one that size should’ve been able to in order to hike the hills with Sif the Outdoorswoman – she gave few interviews, but she never forgot to emphasize how she loved the natural features of earth, especially when she’d been without them in space. Thor looked at her sweaty face and the smile she had in spite of the exhaustion and knew it was Sif. It was always Sif.

It was Sif sifting his toes through the sand on the beach in front of his house alongside her as the sunset brought out the brown in her luscious hair. It was Sif slowly kissing him back against the silk sheets he forgot he was supposed to care about because Sif was the cure for insomnia. Sif told him he worked too hard if he mentioned it to her as she carded her fingers through his hair, leaning on her elbow with the over sheet kicked to the ground because they knew each other’s bodies better than they’d known anyone else’s or even wanted to. Everyone else had been prelude for Sif.

The reality that Sif would be gone sooner and sooner wore down on Thor. And Thor wasn’t notable for his pleasantness when the world forgot to revolve around him. Seeing as Thor was dedicating the mental energy not burdened with already missing Sif to Sif being present, Loki put the bare minimum into his good mornings and goodnights.

Býleistr interpreted whatever irritability over the disrespect, which had nothing to do with Sif — Sif and him, they weren’t in the same Solar System. She was the Earth to Thor’s sun. How could Loki have compared? — but nonetheless, his brother decided that Loki was “upset” and the medicine for that for Býleistr and his military bros was booze and boobs. LA’s cup runneth over with that.

In the middle of Býleistr’s inspirational speech about “getting at the fucking world, man,” Skurge made his appearance in the center of giggling women in the corner of the club Loki’d settled on. He saluted his glass at Loki when he pried his eyes away from his admirers to acknowledge Loki’s stare, threw in a wink.

Býleistr asked, “Who’s that?” and when Loki said, “Thor’s personal guard for me,” Býleistr made his “I’ll see about that” noise, and this was choreographed by the minor deity that had sympathies for Loki, Býleistr being welcomed into the legion of Double Ds to find in Skurge a kindred spirit and fellow veteran, both too occupied to stop Loki from downing his 3rd martini to go trail the muscles with legs to the bathroom.

Muscles washing his hands checked Loki out, and Loki borrowed his body in a tastefully phone-number-smudged bathroom stall where Skurge had plausible deniability.

New besties Skurge and Lei welcomed him back with mojitos and martinis and war stories.

It was turtleneck season, and the morning after, Loki felt the spirit pulling a wintery navy one up over the fading lust bite souvenirs from his utility sex.

He hadn’t gotten his coat off when Thor remembered a fake chipper “Good morning” and went to pine over Sif in his office. Thor buzzed the desk.

Loki let it ring for a few seconds.

“Sif should be coming around 30 minutes. Tell me when.”

“I can send her in if you’d like.”

“No, just tell me.” Right. He couldn’t have the distant memory of making sweet interstellar love to Sif over his desk paining him in his odyssey. Loki’s mistake.

Sif was a contagion. First Thor couldn’t get any work done, now Loki. How could he when her presence was due to be upon him at any second? He’d thought it was hard waiting to meet Stephen Hawking, but oh, bless Sir Hawking’s soul because he had nothing on Sif.

Loki had to bite off the tip of his tongue to contain his hello to Sif. Look at her — the shield-maiden that the ancestors had dreamt of, fierce but femme, sturdy but breakable for the deserving Norwegian man like Thor. It was so magnanimous of her to slum it in jeans and a leather jacket — but a gray one because Sif was _cool_ — giving the rest of them the opportunity to shine.

“You look fine today,” he said. He caught her off-guard. Interesting.

“Thank you. Hm, I like the turtleneck.”

“I do too. Not everyone can wear them, but I can.”

She helped herself to a grope of Loki’s SpaceA snow globe, a gift from HR. “Guessing that Thor is hard at work. I keep telling him that Mars won’t disappear if he takes a day off, but he thinks I’m being overconcerned.”

“Thor having a life is one of the last concerns you should have about him.”

She squinted to search for the subliminal message in that. “Really? And what is this life of Thor’s like?”

Loki relaxed back. “Minding employee-boss confidentiality, I can tell you it sure isn’t lonely.”

Someone as magnificent as Sif deserved to know that her one and only hadn’t taken a vow of chastity in his wait for her. It was sad, the frown on those lips Thor treasured every word from. “He’s still up to his old ways then,” she said. “The way he made it sound, you’d been some great revelation, and he was on his way to living the life his mother dreams of. I was skeptical. You’re only a secretary. There’s only so much organizing his calendar can do for him. What else is it? Writing emails for him and bringing him his coffee.”

“Thor gets his own coffee.”

Sif acknowledged that with a sound. She’d been in space. People who’d been in space didn’t lose stare downs with secretaries.

Loki pressed the buzzer.

Thor was stuffing his arms back into his suit jacket on-the-go, elated to see Sif. Loki didn’t need a Sif to have fun, no. He reminded them both that accidentally bumping his collar down when he gave himself the belated Christmas gift of turning away to look for nothing in his messenger bag instead of at the heart eyes that’d be exchanged.

They were gone when Loki turned back.

Thor’s eyebrows had a pinch like he’d finally seen into Loki’s mind.

“Would you like me to call ahead to any places in particular?” Loki asked. “That way you don’t have to trouble yourself with even asking for a table, save a precious moment.”

Sif started to reply, but Thor was telling her, “Go find Bruce. He’ll give you the tour of the floor. I’ll see you for dinner.”

Oh, okay. Thor’s little-known perceptiveness had made its annual appearance, coming out to see that Loki had interfered in the Great Union.

“I hope to see you the next time I’m in town,” Sif told Loki.

“Me too.”

At least her ass was in the same realm of the greatness of Thor’s.

“What’s that on your neck?”

Loki gestured at himself from the hips up and slowly said, “A turtleneck collar. Oh. Sorry.” Loki adjusted his collar. “Turtlenecks can have a mind of their own.”

If Thor wanted Loki to turn himself off and go be idle in a supply closet until he needed him again, he was sorely mistaken. “Do us both a favor and go home. Better yet? Stay there till you’re not walking around with fucking hickies from some little one-night-stand on your neck.” He thought this was reasonable and walked away.

“No.”

A pivot of Thor’s head. “No?”

“Yes. No.” Loki crossed his arms. “I haven’t done anything wrong. I was off the clock last night. You have Sif. What’s the harm in me getting all hot and heavy and sweaty with someone? By the time she leaves, all the scent they left on and… in me will have worn off I’m sure. Even with how much they had to leave.”

Fake calmly, Thor said, “Let’s talk in my office.”

Oh, they were absolutely going to talk in Thor’s office. Loki believed that. He believed it enough to get up as Thor, somewhat terrifyingly still, let Loki go ahead of him.

“You really should go catch up to Sif,” he told the rage that’d been Thor wherever it was behind him. “Our talk could wait for…”

The intermission Loki was going to have with the Cock Thor’s hand had done him the service of fishing out of his fly.

“…some future time,” Loki’s mouth finished to free itself up for fantastical priorities.

Yanking hand tendons alive, Thor weld the awakening giant of Cock. “Sit.”

With mouth open or closed? Loki settled in-between for whatever the Cock had in store.

“Tell me how you make yourself cum.”

“What?” would’ve only been to buy his brain time that it needed an eternity of in the presence of the Cock. Not that Thor wasn’t on the lowest ground here. Sif never had Thor whipping it out for a possessive — what would it be? Frosting?

Clasping his hands casually like his pole and hole didn’t have their own heartbeats, he said all matter-of-fact, “Oh, you’ve seen. Sometimes, with my hand, but toys are nice too. It really depends on my mood. I’ve quite the treasure trove as you know. Cock sleeves — a Fleshlight, the clear, mouth one. I have this one toy that penetrates and has a vibrating cockring.”

The physical sensations of those rivaled by sight only of the Cock’s own pink turtleneck choking off its thick tip.

“Mm. When I’m feeling utilitarian, it takes my 0-60 speed faster than the A4. If I want to force it out of myself too,” he said, speaking too quickly for Thor, stroking and stroking away, to jump in to clarify his demand. Loki was the used car salesman of his sex toys. But Thor’d said Loki’s voice alone did the job and it was doing so for Thor’s glazed eyes that went with his frenzied stroking.

Thor interrupted Loki’s admiration for the nipple clamp ankle cuffs he didn’t get to use enough with a hole-clenching growl. Eyes screwing shut, left hand cupping his Cockhead while the other fisted the unseen orgasm Thor’s hips pushed out with jagged, shallow thrusts to go with his deep, desperate breaths.

Aw. No frosting straight from the tip then after all.

Lightly panting, Thor opened his eyes to watch himself wipe the shining, drooling tip of his cock onto his palm. “Take off your shirt.”

At the other end of his sweater, Thor’s almost overflowing handful of pearly cum, Sex the scent, and knot disappearing into his fly surprised Loki up close.

“Here,” Thor said, then subsequently warmed yet wet Loki’s neck and shoulder with his actual fucking cum fresh from the so-called tap. His throat-swallowing hands couldn’t have the tactile sensation to feel Loki’s red-lining jugular pulse while Loki’s brain came up empty on blood flow, Loki’s hands clutching the couch to resist giving his cock those two pumps it’d need to free him from the sudden hundred-plus fever under and over his skin.

Loki’s lifetime of composure kept him still to Thor’s pass over his nipples and down to the border of his pants and over his arms down to the wrists that’d never been this mind-bogglingly small. 

Thor’s hand started getting friction on Loki’s skin, friction that’d flake off the drying, tacky, protein-based lotion Thor had rubbed over Loki’s top half.

To think if someone had walked in. Anyone. What HR also didn’t know wouldn’t kill them.

Thor had a step back to admire the handiwork of his perverted creativity.

Loki replaced his sweater. “If you’re cutting out the cologne middleman going forward, it’d be great if you mixed in it with La Mer or any of those other moisturizers like the ones you threw away in my apartment that one time. The texture of cum doesn’t travel well on dry surfaces.”

“It was efficient. There’s not a chance in hell you don’t smell like a copy of me now.”

“And the appeal of that is what?” Loki settled the collar over the thin coating of dried Thor alpha concentrate on his neck. “I’d think your mind is too full to care about anything else let alone who I smell like.”

“Too full of what?”

“What all of our minds are full of — Sif.”

“And she said I was imagining things.”

“I bet she did.”

“She’s one of my best friends. And unlike you, she respects me. It’s like you’re purposely going for anyone close to me.”

“I’m trying to get comfortable with people I should hypothetically be seeing again in the next five”—three—“years. God forbid I don’t act like a walking-talking computer.”

“Since when does getting comfortable mean trying to fuck?”

“You think I—” That was a laugh. “Bruce, nothing has to be said there. I know you had your suspicions, but no. Now, Tony Stark, I was only… entertaining him for my own amusement. He’s engaged anyway — not that it’s been a barrier in the past — but I need you to know that I never considered inserting any of my person on or into Sif’s.”

“Then, what was that morning about? Out there, you talking to her instead of buzzing me like I told you to?”

“She’s the future Mrs. Odinson. I wanted to get to know her while I could.”

Thor scoffed. “Fucking hell. Queen Liz is likelier to end up my wife than Sif. I didn’t take a lot of lessons from my teens, but Sif and I are better off as friends, and we’ll always be just friends.” He winced. “It was like dating my cousin.”

“That’s normal in Alabama.”

“Thank fuck I’m not from there.”

The phone out at Loki’s desk required him.

“Well, I hope that my skin having the texture of Elmer’s glue has put your mind at ease.” The weirdness of that was Loki’s excuse for his stiff posture when Thor came desk watching, not the hard-on he was sustaining to recoup on a mind-melting orgasm later, the hard-on that’d made itself at home and refused to take a walk around the block when Sif led one Bruce Banner through the door.

Loki was a fusion-fission reactor of Thor’s scent. Some particles were going to get to Bruce.

Too many would have Bruce’s repurposed wince at Loki on full frown.

“You can go right in,” Loki told Sif. “I’m going to go run this file downstairs and head home. Have a good night.”

“Loki,” Bruce said, nodding.

“Dr. B.”

Thor couldn’t mind the lack of goodbye. One, he never left Loki as far as Loki’s nose was concerned, two, did he always bother with them? And finally, Loki didn’t know about Thor, but he didn’t want to end his year with Bruce annihilating his life.

Loki’d like to get more orgasms like the ones he had in his bed and in Thor’s cum before his life was annihilated. Maybe 5… 50. 500.

#

_“Supposed to keep eyes on u at all times so congrats on tht,”_ said Skurge.

_“I’ll feel much safer with you keeping a watch out when I’m pissing in public.”_

_“Fuck you too.”_

Loki encouraged Býleistr to go out for those drinks with Skurge on departure eve as consolation. The empty apartment to continue orgasming in was definitely not the reason.

#

Everyone but Loki got New Year’s Eve off.

The pressing reason for this? Thor needed Loki to finalize Thor’s end-of-year letter to SpaceA and Leiptr employees.

“I’ve never written one before, but I read a book from back in the Gilded Age where the CEO did, and it’s a good idea,” said Thor, comfy on his endless couch in his JPL tee and trackies because Sif had left and taken any plans Thor was bound to with her. “I wrote an outline.”

How thoughtful and not the bare ass minimum. “Good.”

“Finally get to put your century in university to good use.”

“Because published papers in high impact journals aren’t good use. Of course.”

Thor’s smirk was an immovable force. “But more people will read this than all of those combined. You can have your talents appreciated.”

Loki stooped over the coffee table to share Thor’s outline with himself, unreactive to Thor’s unerring satisfaction, and in a show of how unbothered he was, he chose the self-indulgent half-egg chair to nestle him in all of his unbotheredness. What was there to be bothered about? Thor’s outline wasn’t hopeless, and his stint as an essay fixer had primed him to embody the battery-and-titanium-flavored protein shake essence of Thor Odinson, CEO, Founder, and Chairman, of SpaceA and Leiptr.

“How’s it going?” asked Thor before checking himself and warming Loki with his body-heat by leaning over him, and Thor’s silence was an “It’s going well,” seeing as how Thor would never compliment Loki ever. He couldn’t bring himself to ruin Loki’s work with corrections and instead pushed suggestions that Loki did consider, didn’t always take despite his convoluted reassurances. But Thor had his end-of-year circlejerk in authentic Thorese.

“Is that it?”

Thor had designs on his kitchen. “Stick around. Something might come up.”

Loki was here because Thor could keep him here. Very well. If Thor wanted Loki around, Loki would do his best to be around, to embrace Thor’s philosophy on personal space or how it didn’t exist between the two of them, confuse Thor with his omnipresence, Loki here edging pieces of fruit between his lips, Loki there against the balcony railing, Loki everywhere Thor was.

Thor lemonaded those lemons by handing Loki a pool cue over in his room of framed vintage Maradona and Eusebio jerseys, a life-sized Apollo test-flight suit, and of course, pool table. 

“There are at least a dozen parties happening at the houses around here, of which none will turn you away,” Loki felt the need to remind Thor.

Thor did not screw his shot with the strength of his eureka unfortunately. “But we already have one going here.”

“Rich guys really are masochists.”

“Nothing wrong with a little pain.” Thor winked as one of his balls sunk in.

Loki had an answer for that and an accidental jab to one of Thor’s meaty cheeks with his cue. “Sorry, I thought it was a ball.”

“Easy mistake.”

“Very—” His palm kept Thor’s cue from finding his ass. He looked over his shoulder for the unapologetic look from Thor. “Try again.”

When Thor’s next shot went in, he said, “Must be the last bit of this year’s luck.”

Thor winning must have been. The second win in a row after an insanely close game was clear proof. Loki didn’t need to play another game to know that, however smug Thor was about Loki, the scientist and academic, drawing conclusions. Thor claimed, “I knew you’d be a sore loser,” and Loki taught him about quantum chaos aka luck. Thor’s response: “I should fund more research into that.”

Loki worked for a twat.

Thor unveiling a bottle of aquavit did not change this.

“Should I be drinking on the job?” Loki asked, scalding his nostrils with it.

Thor was getting worse at pretending Loki wasn’t funny. “Drink.”

Sunset brought the gold out in their glasses and in Thor’s general everything.

“After you get us to Mars,” Loki said, “what’s the plan?”

Thor had to contemplate. “Titan, Uranus, anywhere there’s solid land for us to put our feet down on.”

The levels of self-confidence to make an outrageous statement like that deserved Loki’s masterpiece “Thora the Explorer.”

Thor had to hide how impressed he was in his glass.

“I should go down to Hollywood and sell that. With how music looks these days, it’d be #1 for weeks on end.”

“Don’t sing that to anyone else. For both of us.”

“Generous with everything else but selfish where it truly matters. Typical.”

“After the Ph.D., besides the professor thing, what’s your plan?”

“I don’t do ‘plans.’ Hopes, yes.”

Thor was not asking him what these hopes were because his own were that Loki would explain anyway.

“That’s five”—three—“years from now, but I’ll have a few cats I’m sure. You’ll have had enough children with working brains for the both of us by then.”

Even by refraining from speaking, Thor couldn’t contain the pity, retreating to indifference to counter the sourness of it, unfamiliar with unpleasant tastes unlike the rest of them peasants unblessed with a gourmet chef plating them three four-course meals a day. Generously, he’d also given them the holiday and offered the temple of his body to Chinese take-out titanium chopsticks — a gift from the President of China of course, a gift that Thor had used before and they were using again — brought to their mouths. Thor told him the story of how he’d closed a deal with Chinese officials by eating a legendarily hot pepper with only a nonchalant “That was a bit spicy” which was not insanely arousing, cc: pole and hole.

The balcony to Thor’s bedroom had a higher vantage point, and with all of the lights in his house off, made Malibu less obnoxiously idyllic.

“To a reasonable year,” said Loki, initiating a toast of his glass with the one Thor had lazily over the balcony railing.

“To a good year.”

He downed the four gulps of aquavit left, and a minor explosion blossomed past Thor down at the pier jutting off into the water. It wouldn’t have been hard to blame his empty glass on why he aimed his lips at Thor’s cheek.

His lips hit Thor’s lips instead. This was at no fault of his because Thor had turned. He’d turned, and their lips had met one another, which Thor would’ve done with any of the friends he’d sent to Vegas without him Loki was positive. Perhaps, less demanding, less — almost definitely no neck-burning hand or skin-stabbing beard jam but that was because Thor had nothing to prove to them like he did to Loki, no pact of aggression to reinforce in the flavor of aquavit and coffee. 

It was nothing special.

Nothing for Loki to need to catch his breath over or for his aching lips to buzz at.

Thor felt the same, nothing changed about that everlasting indifference for Loki as he threw down the rest of the aquavit in his glass. “Happy New Year.”

“Happy New Year.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thor, baseball goes counterclockwise! You can't go from third base to first base! You're supposed to kiss him before you rub your cum all over him! 🤦♀️ 
> 
> But honestly though. Loki absolutely would play baseball clockwise on purpose.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I'd seen Coronavirus coming a literal year ago when I wrote this (listen, I'm a literary dragon; I hoard works, Jerry! Hoard!), this chapter would've been written with a lot more SpaceA-branded masks. Wear masks, etc. Loki would have one in leather and adorned by gold spikes.
> 
> Appendix  
> Cars - a cinematic masterpiece centering out the protagonist, a sentient red race car Lightning McQueen  
> Doctor scrawl - there's a joke that doctors write in their own language because of how bad doctor handwriting tends to be   
> Hypebeasts (have used this before but I should define it just in case) - individuals devoted to trend-chasing, often gimmicky fashion  
> Kinder eggs - a candy that has a lil toy in the middle   
> Lex Luthor - The Loki to Superman's Thor but bald and too encumbered by his sexual frustration to ally as much as Loki does with Thor

Leave it to Loki's body to find cold in sunny CA — a cold.

A throat-clawing, nose-suffocating bother that attacked in the cover of night and took refuge from the light in the depths of Loki's sorry excuse for an immune system. He blamed Thor. Being around divinity had lulled his white blood cells into a false sense of security, had given them ideas about invulnerability. They were for sure learning their lesson but dragging Loki down with them, the cowards.

None of his, to quote Thor at various points, “five hundred” Ph.Ds. were in microbiology like Thor’s favorite doctor, but a cocktail of various cough medicines washed down by Chamomile and topped in lozenge wouldn't — couldn’t fail him. Anchoring down to weather the storm, wasn't that a Viking virtue? The ancestors should've been as proud of Loki, a nidus of misery, gracing that office as they were of the man whose name was on it.

The champion of the sun. His Wayfarers put up a fight, gave Thor’s office a new tint and him vestibular sense. 

Like hell if he’d serve Thor tomatoes to throw at Loki’s fantastic performance as the world’s best overall assistant by staying here to work at .5 speed. No, he was here to secure himself a smooth landing from the parachute of some of those 30 paid sick days promised by Benevolent Thor to his acolytes and employees. 

His catch and release for the assorted VIPs and underlings in his and Thor’s email inboxes was the automated reply chipperly directing them to wait or not wait if they were one of the lucky ones with Thor’s personal numbers or Loki wouldn’t have put it past them home address.

"Loki?"

"Yes?" He didn't sound that awful after all.

At least not as awful as Thor seemed to think looking at Loki like... that. Like these were hangover glasses and you knew Thor thought lowly of peasants that got those. "You look — like crap."

"The self-esteem loved that —"

"You're sick. Why are you here?"

"Because I was coming in to tie things up before telling you I was taking a few days off," said Loki. "I'm taking a few days off."

"You should've called."

Loki would've rolled his eyes had he not required their focus to stand up without falling on his ass. Though Thor wouldn’t have seen anyway with the sunglasses. "Because you would've been able to set up the automated reply and redirects."

"Who cares?" Thor's hand had relocated Loki's coat from the rack to somewhere much more doable.

The shadow over his eyes was the heel of the rough hand on his forehead.

“You’re fucking burning.”

“Now, that’s a compliment.”

“Stay here,” said Thor. He, however, made no attempt at assuring that, so clearly, it wasn’t imperative, and Loki could just not stay there.

As Loki headed for the freedom the elevator would provide, Annoyed Thor, one of Thor’s main identities, called his name and gifted the last bit of momentum for Loki to get into the elevator from that hand on Loki’s back.

“Being in enclosed spaces with a sick person is inadvisable even for demigods.”

“I haven’t been sick since I was five.” Thor’s briefcase hung in the hand that didn’t guide Loki out of the elevator into the parking garage. He would use this as an excuse to work from home. To ensure his clean conscience, he personally saw that the job of getting Loki home was finished shoving Loki into his Leiptr and stirring the viscous sludge in Loki’s stomach.

Loki’s monk-like control of his gag reflex kept him from upgrading Thor’s Italian leather interior. Thor didn’t need to be hand-held into getting Loki home, especially not when the moving terrain was promising vertigo if Loki didn’t close his eyes.

#

He was soft, not in a car, and engulfed in Thor when he opened them.

Thor’s bed, a bed neck-and-neck at the top of the list of ones Loki knew well.

His shoes and coat — and sunglasses — had awayed themselves, but the death that had descended on him sure hadn’t.

Footsteps welcomed in Thor and a white jacket. “Good. You’re awake. This is…” a doctor and not just any doctor but the Director of Internal Medicine at UCLA Medical Center, member of the metaphorical medical Ivy League and therefore, beyond house calls toting around a stereotypical doctor’s bag. The humble watch on her wrist when she retrieved a stethoscope said that it’d been a total of two hours since Loki had locked his office computer.

Two hours between Thor realizing he’d be without assistant and an Olympic gold medalist of a doctor instructing Loki to sit up on the edge of Thor’s bed as she pressed a stethoscope to his chest and heard his lungs fucking struggle with breathing.

That might as well have been two days in billionaire time to Thor’s crossed arms.

“What’s wrong with him?”

It was the flu because of course, it was the nuclear option.

“I’m your guinea pig,” said Loki as the lozenge she handed him did its magic. “Whatever you can do, do it. Even if it kills me.” The sore throat was taken care of. Now, he only had the full-body ache, pounding in his head, balloon expanding in perpetuity in his skull, ocean in his lungs, and he’d never been this cold in his life. He put himself horizontal for a decimal point of reprieve. “I’d rather be dead.”

“He’s joking,” said Thor — lied. “What can help him?”

All of the pills in the world she said. Loki’s throat was also on board with death over swallowing solids. “How do I get a liquid?” mashed the pound button in Loki’s skull down, and seeing as how Loki would’ve broken himself in half before even hurting Thor, Loki got his revenge shoving his fingers into his ears and letting himself escape to sleep.

A temporary escape. Finished throttling him, Thor was telling him, “Drink this,” holding a soufflé cup the color only medicine managed to be. Loki gladly drank this and the that afterward and the other this and that coating his throat gloriously with their viscosity, taste be damned.

Thor’s car keys sat on the nightstand with the half dozen medicines.

“Going somewhere?”

“No.” Thor handed Loki a SpaceA mug full of tea, herbal, Echinacea, sat on the edge of the bed like it wasn’t his. “I’ve never seen you sleep so heavily.”

Swallowing tea took precedent to replying. “Unless you watch me sleep often, I don’t think you can be a good judge.” He handed his tea toward the nightstand, not to Thor, but Thor was the one doing the final hand-off. “You can go work. I’m going to do more of that heavy sleeping, which I could’ve done at home. I have soup there at least.”

Thor took his advice, leaving him to float on that level between wakefulness and sleep.

“Here” brought him back to wakefulness. It, more importantly, brought him to soup being held out to him, soup, chicken broth, and squishy vaguely vegetable bits as far as his taste buds could discern, that was not what was in Loki’s pantry.

If he could’ve lived in the loop of the contentment post-soup.

Thor the Soup Fairy was half in on criss-cross applesauce not out of reach. As the low bass could’ve explained, the murmuring wasn’t him or technically, the TV unearthed from between his Andromeda and the Milky Way paintings. It was _Cars_.

“Researching?”

Thor turned. The ponytail he’d pulled his hair into had missed about a thousand flyaways. “It’s a good movie.”

“It has cars in it. I don’t think it couldn’t be to you.”

“You’re feeling better.”

“I don’t know if that’s saying a lot. Fuck, I have to pee.” He’d drank the entire ocean by the feel of it and unsurprisingly, almost sloshed to the ground with the volume of it. But he had it. Thor had him, so he had it. Still, the toilet was a seat that it’d be a great idea to take which he did. Why didn’t he sit down to piss more?

Ah, the fire hose conundrum. Nothing some direction from a hand couldn’t fix.

“You know,” he told his audience of one surprisingly engaged Thor, “it’s a good idea that you haven’t realized my piss likely carries my scent, or you would be demanding I wear a catheter.”

“You’re high.”

Nice try but Loki didn’t give up that easily. “But I’m not wrong.”

How high could he have been if he could stand up and — well, maybe his knees were a bit high, better yet his legs. Not that it mattered when there was Thor to be Loki’s legs while he proved that his hands weren’t high, ergo, he the whole could not be generalized as being high. 

He, however, was freezing his balls off.

“Your balls are on the inside.”

“Which makes it all the more concerning.” Thor’s flimsy excuse for a duvet could’ve been Kleenex for all the warmth it offered. “I’m cold, Thor. Turn up the heat.”

“It’s 50 degrees Fahrenheit outside.”

“I am on the inside. There’s climate control in every room. Go downstairs to watch _Cars_ in the Arctic.”

Loki never stopped assisting Thor, did he? Wisely, Thor tapped impending warmth into the thermostat though the one-handed shirt strip was all spite, his rebellion that he couldn’t stop at the shirt, not when his trackies fell off his legs and satin cherry red boxers so easily.

The door, intermediary to Thor’s Arctic _Cars_ -rewatch downstairs, was ignored, so Thor’s gold-plated body could waft heat over Loki before settling down a tease away on top of the duvet not wrapped around Loki.

Loki bet that if he got electron-close to Thor’s eyes, he could’ve watched _Cars_ with a blue tint. Mediterranean blue.

“I can feel you staring at me.”

“Staring sounds aimless. I’m reflecting.”

Thor doused Loki with some Riviera, warm Riviera. “About what?”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t even know where to start thinking about what you’re thinking.”

“Bruce—”

“You’re thinking about Bruce?”

“Why did you cockblock me with him again?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Don’t think you even know what you’re talking about.”

“You mean, you cornering him to deter any ideas of me becoming your in-law?”

“That wasn’t cockblocking. You were stringing him along. I couldn’t tell you to stop. No, you would’ve just gone behind my back. Taken it to the next level. I had to tell him even though he’d never. He’s learned his lesson about mixing business and pleasure.”

“Oh, and what taught him this lesson? Was it a courier who wore her pencil skirts a bit too tight for Bruce to resist? Some young engineer in oversized Harry Potter glasses with an oral fixation on multitools?”

“She was an engineer. No glasses. Not usually. She was there at the beginning.” Thor’s eyelashes were the shade of brass of his hair’s lowlights. “Gorgeous. Smart of course. Actually spoke to Bruce like a real person, not like he was a different species. She was nice. I liked her.”

“But… she broke your best friend’s heart.”

“No, I think he broke hers. Betty never cared about how it looked dating her boss or how many days they’d go without seeing each other. She understood. That’s hard to find. But Bruce has always been too concerned about others for his own good.”

“That’s not Machiavellian. Lex Luthor, is that you?”

“Don’t get me wrong. I care about other people too but not to the extent that I sacrifice everything and don’t keep anything for myself.”

“Was that ever up for debate?”

“Anyway, whether I disagree with the decision he made or not, it was his to make. I did my best to talk him out of it, but hey. We haven’t found time travel. Yet. And Bruce is happy. Safe. I don’t worry about it.”

“Beyond the invitations to the American Genocide Feast, Christmas, your birthday, the kids’ birthday, and your spouse’s you mean. You have to give him uncle status. It’s the least you can do since he’s not told the world all your secrets.”

“That’s called being a good friend. That’s only an accomplishment to you.”

“Getting lectures on morality from the billionaire. Oh, please. There are legions of college students and/or socialists that would like to guillotine you for not flying circles around the planet making it rain green showers and then throwing yourself out of it as penance.”

“Money is power. Someone has to have it. It’s for the best that it’s me.”

“There are worse choices.” Like Thor’s super best friend Erik Selvig. Shit, did Thor not know how terrible a billionaire Selvig would’ve been. First of all, he’d pay for Loki’s assassination and his awaying from the record, so that all Thor would have of Loki would be the memories that kept him horny at night. That would be an egregious enough wrong that Loki didn’t need to go on, but in case Thor’s “You were saying he’d be terrible?” wasn’t a total joke, Loki told Thor the story of Selvig building a human-sized hamster wheel and proceeding to run it to power a TV.

The exercise ball that strayed onto the wheel and had Selvig eat shit was partially influenced by Loki’s foot, but it hadn’t been his ball. Not that it stopped Loki from laughing himself to tears while Selvig’s TA struggled to turn it off and soften the road rash. 

“Your eccentricities end at aerosilizing your cum for me to spray it on and an obsession with lifting heavy objects. Otherwise, you’re drowning underdeveloped countries with solar panels and trying to get humanity to Mars.”

Liquid was about to trickle out of Loki’s nose, but tissues from the nightstand saved the day. The entire week. When it snotted, it poured. “Fuck. I’m going to cut my nose off. I’d still be at least a 7. You know I would be.”

Tissue tampons dammed the snot for him to not drown while lounging and talking about how ridiculous raccoons were, which they didn’t have in Norway, and how about Kinder eggs being banned in America? American “chocolate,” imitation chocolate should’ve been banned like American fake cheese, but French cheese — Switzerland, beautiful place, best mainlanders — no, not Germans. Beer and bratwurst had confused Thor. Vegan sausage. Thor had invested in a meat substitute start-up, which right, yes, Loki spoke to them sometimes. Thor missed writing letters. Loki used to have fountain pens. Tattoos, oh, he’d thought about getting one. Tattoo wedding rings. Idealistic idea but romantic…

#

It was a miracle a tsunami didn’t start inside of him from being shaken for the nth time.

Outlined by the TV’s light it was Thor. “You need to take your medicine.”

A few syrupy shots that by the end of Loki had no throat. He was led out of the bed and down to a steaming bowl of soup with a side of tea. Thor settled for solids but had steam coming off his mug too in begrudging solidarity.

“That’s my mom’s recipe,” said Thor. “The soup.”

The knowledge of its warmth down his throat was substitute for feeling it. “Yet another reason to love your mom.”

“Other than? You haven’t exactly met her.”

“I’ve seen pictures of her, answered calls from her, and seen her postcards to you. And I’ve met you. I get the feeling I have a lot to thank her for.”

“That was surprisingly nice. I’ll be sure to tell her that.”

“Please, do. I would love for her to love me.”

But Thor’s “like” — which it absolutely was because if Thor didn’t like Loki, he sure as hell wouldn’t be the tail of a two-person conga line up the stairs — it would do. Did. Thor spared Loki of the burden of gross movement after Loki took care of his buttons, pulling off Loki’s shirt and trousers for him, the glimpses of his rough hands tickling.

Thor steered him into the shower but wimped out of getting in with him. “Go ahead. I’m right here.”

“Afraid I’ll slip and fall?”

“Just shower” plus how Thor leaned in the door, letting out the steam but getting himself comfortable, equaled “yes.” Loki had to go “ah” and act like he’d gotten caught on some suds. Moral obligation. If Thor was going to buy it and wet himself, he deserved to feel stupid when Loki started laughing.

The coughing party-crashed.

“I know. I know. ‘Karma.’” Try feeling aptly punished when getting swaddled in a fluffy towel by Thor though. Impossible.

Thor repaid the stolen steam with one of his trusty SpaceA sweatshirts and matching SpaceA trackies the drawstring pulled tight kept on Loki’s ass. He replaced the glass of water on the nightstand as Loki bunched himself in blanket. “You’re going to be better tomorrow morning, alright?”

The boiling hydrochloric acid burning its way up Loki’s esophagus and out of Loki’s mouth thought fuck you to that. An emphatic fuck you bending Loki over toward not-bed to let it out of him.

Thor’s legs were arriving at the crime scene.

“You should let me go home. You don’t need to deal with this—”

“It’s just fucking puke. I didn’t know a little puke would do you in.” Thor’s hand held water.

Water was welcome.

Eyes closed, he dulled the acid burn in his mouth and trying hard to revive feeling in his throat as Thor, like he wasn’t the Second Coming of Christian Christ, Zoroaster revived, sopped up Loki’s vomit with a towel and instead of abandoning Loki permanently, silently took care of it like it was a skill.

“You don’t drink as much as I used to in college and not learn to clean up puke,” said Thor. He sighed, and when Loki opened his eyes, was looking down at him. “Do you want crackers?”

“I want to die.”

“Besides that.”

“Is this funny to you?”

“This right now — yes. It kind of is. Is that a problem?”

“Can you just leave me alone to die in peace?”

“You can die when I decide you can. Get up. You need to take your medicine.”

Loki was more than willing to take his medicine. He was willing to eat the soup, to drink the tea, munch on the Saltine crackers. But the medicine, the soup, and the tea and crackers were unwilling to stay and make themselves at home in his stomach.

If it went down, it came back up. Newton’s Inverse First Law. Loki demonstrated it to Thor in the emptied trash can, at least once emptied, and the toilet — and the sink after the toilet. For his effort, his pulse found its way back into his scalp and his skull clogged with pressure tempting him to crack it on the nightstand. That needed energy he didn’t have.

He barely had it to peel his eyelids apart to check who was talking. He asked the doctor if she’d brought the Nembutal this time. No, unfortunately, but she had a syringe that faded into the wall of pain in Loki’s arm, something more “potent” she said.

Potent. Such a self-explanatory word, a rarity in the English language, “language,” more of a loose association of ideas, begged, borrowed, and stolen, most of them weak, piddly — piddly, now wasn’t that word? Self-explanatory and funny. Didn’t Thor think so?

Thor with his — hands. He had such hands. He could touch Loki with those hands, touch him all over, cup Loki in his hands, and then sipped him up, kept Loki near the campfire inside of him to stay warm. He didn’t have to take it with him when he went, did he? He could’ve left it with Loki, for Loki to hold and… rub his cheek against. Salty. Warm. Thor, warmth.

The sun shined in his voice. Bright, springshine humming with cloudberries and green. He could’ve inverted in Thor’s voice, the beating of Loki’s heart. He could hear his life in Thor’s voice. Their lives, yes, together like it said. It told him about forever, promised happy and safe and hands. They touched them, both, vibrating through his skin and melting him into feathers. Feathers, a house built from them, populated with laughs and Thor’s hands, Thor’s red and gold hands.

He needed them to hold him together. They did. They held him in one piece and Thor’s arms, they were rope, untrodden freshly fallen leaves stem to tip, stem to tip, woven together, weaving him together — them. It was them, Thor and Loki, Loki and Thor, Loki-in-Thor, Loki’s arms in Thor’s arms, Loki’s legs in Thor’s legs, hands in his hands, eyes in eyes, heart in heart. The yolk of Thor. He was Thor’s yolk.

To hell with everything else — he wanted — he wanted to just.

Dissolve into sand in the sheets. To be near comfort, in its arms. It held him.

He held him, Thor that was. The moment the sheets were sheets and the darkness was the flipside of his eyelids, the arms at risk of suffocating him and air whistling to his scalp ID’d as being distinctly Thor.

Distinct as a concept had been… unfamiliar to say the least.

It rapidly reintroduced itself as Loki claimed his rightful crown as A Big Pathetic Burden, struggling to do as little as get Thor away from him like Loki just knew Thor’d been lacking.

But nothing like the honor of proving himself to not be as pathetic as previously believed injected got the endorphins flowing to limbo himself out of Thor’s arms.

Lots of bracing got what was left of him safely down to, special thanks to all the handles and blunt edges, back himself a few paces from starvation. Soup, he fucking loved soup.

And crackers and he didn’t mind if he did a Pop Tart or two, and a nice chunk of that fantastically crusty loaf of Rye. Hazelnut butter excelled on that.

Thor emerged from the cover of the island only to be smacked to a stop by the sheer patheticness of Loki and his spread on the ground that’d been a fine seat. “You should’ve woken me up.”

“I was dying from starvation,” said the stew of Pop Tart and chicken broth he was chewing. “Hard to believe is uncommon with how I usually look.”

“It was hard to get you to eat. When you did, it wasn’t a lot.”

“Your bedside clock said something that looked suspiciously like four days more than the last date I remember.”

“It wasn’t your easiest battle.”

“You overestimate my immune system.” The water encountered zero protest from Loki’s throat. The strike was over. “How was your temp?”

“What temp?”

“You took five days off?”

“No. I worked from home.”

“You had lunch with President Rogers scheduled for yesterday. I know that Americans have killed their presidents a few times, but to willingly send him into a place with the flu —”

“I rescheduled. I’m considered a carrier anyway.”

“Which is why you still had your meeting with the Senator from Florida.”

“Better to get that one out of the way. And most of the other ones. They’re not like me. They’ll take the time off the second they think they feel a tickle in their throat. Their employees will get some time away from them.”

“And an entire week because most people don’t have a world-renown internist open to house calls.”

“Friends are always happy to help friends.”

“Does that make me a friend?”

“After what you told me, friend seems like a low bar.” Thor was vaguely smiling, a quarter too asleep to be overexaggerating. He brought over the warmth, Thor’s warmth, to show Loki up moving things from ground to counter.

Loki managed to move himself before Thor could think about it. “You should go back to sleep.” He didn’t dodge the starkly rough hand on his forehead. “I’m at a surplus, and your immune system deserves the rest from fending off my flu.”

“I will.” Full stop. Thor fielded no ideas of his sunk cost being squandered because of a fall or a fainting spell while Loki stored hazelnut butter and scouted his bag from the reading nook Thor ditched it in. Thor’d been in his bag, admitted to looking at Loki’s written planner and notes for coming meetings when Loki had been “not that helpful.” But it hadn’t occurred to him to get Loki’s phone and charge it. “It’s not like you needed it.”

The crossroads at the top of the stairs — Thor’s bedroom or one of the many others he had no excuse of sleeping in seeing as how he could not only stand on his own two feet but walk with them.

“Remember something you told me?”

Loki turned to Thor who’d gotten bored of Loki hording to the top stair landing and said, “I’m going to head home.”

Thor blinked, not believing it. The past four days would not have had him believe it was this easy to get rid of the misplaced moral obligation of Loki. “Not now.”

“We’re in LA. At least a third of people are waking up for the first time ‘today’ right now. Me getting an Uber home at 3:00 am isn’t outrageous.” Demonstrating to Thor that Loki could still make his own decisions for himself, and by extension, for Thor as expected of an assistant, Loki u-turned back down the stairs.

“The flu lasts two weeks —”

“On the high end —”

“And you don’t think that will be you? You might not be puking up everything you eat and falling over, but you’re sick.”

The juice from the charge pack resurrected Loki’s phone at the key table. 

“Sickness is only an issue when it affects you outward. If I’m not being outwardly effected —”

“Yet.”

“—then I’m fine.” Oxfords and SpaceA trackies, such couture. Getting his clothes would’ve meant risking going upstairs and getting barricaded in Thor’s bedroom. “I need to catch up —”

“I called Caltech. Your professors said you’re ahead. The emails, they can wait. If they were important, I’d know. What’s important is you fighting this off and getting better.”

“Fine. I’ll take another day. Without me to worry about, I’m sure you’ll be more productive —”

“No” phone in Loki’s hand anymore.

It was in Thor’s, the to-be-called Uber with it. “I’m fucking exhausted, so I’m going to cut this short. You’re going to go upstairs, alright? Go back to bed. Tomorrow morning, you’re going to eat a real meal and then deal with emails.”

Something like running would’ve been a first-class, all-expenses-paid-by-Thor trip to humiliation. Noncompliance at all would’ve been.

He sighed taking off his shoes. “Give me back my phone.”

Phone in hand, he went up to the nest on Thor’s bed and immersed himself in it.

He had more texts than there were days in the year, most of them forwarded from his work phone number.

“No phones in bed,” mumbled Thor.

They could wait till after breakfast for the sake of Thor not stealing his phone like how comfortable he looked, eyes almost shut in a pillow, did not trick Loki into thinking he wouldn’t.

Loki could actually breathe when he went to sleep.

#

As per the instructions written in Doctor Scrawl, Loki shotgunned purple sludge, red-purple sludge, orange sludge, and clear but no less vibrantly spine-crawling sludge.

He looted Thor’s closet for the hypebeastly “Adidas x SpaceA” black trackies and long-sleeves of Liverpool’s practice kit in case dialing down the thermostat as he passed through rooms backfired.

Thor and his nipples were basking in the sunshine over Thor’s first cup of coffee of the day while the chef cooked, turning away from that to congratulate Loki on his recovery.

Loki thanked them for the soup.

“You should send my thanks to your mom too,” Loki told Thor, sitting in a real solid chair like his body was astonished by the unfamiliarity of. “It is her recipe.”

Thor came to sit down across from Loki at the breakfast table just in time for the plates and their exquisite fruits they bore. “What do you all remember?”

What had Loki exactly told Thor, the newest, pressing mystery. A drunk mouth spoke what a sober mouth hid, sure, but Loki’d been teleported to Mars by what Thor’s friend had prescribed. Loki could’ve derived Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle or you know, said something that was completely untrue.

“A lot.” Such as how it’d been agony to think of eating solids but here, there were waffles being the best solids could be.

“You seem calm about that.”

“Why wouldn’t I be? It was medicine, not truth serum. Every other day, YouTube is pushing some unfunny video with someone declaring that they want to be a unicorn after they’ve come out of anesthesia.”

“So, you don’t think we should move to Trondheim?”

“You’re too Americanized to move back to Norway.”

“Funny since it seemed to not matter when you said we should have babies.”

“I’m not seeing the contradiction. Any babies you donated to the existence of would be able to move to Trondheim with me while you stay here. You really aren’t a child of divorce. Not that it would be divorce. There isn’t a name for taking a gift with you when you move.”

Thor had been spoiled by Loki being unable to hold his eyes open let alone a staredown. “I should forget it is what you’re saying.”

“I’m saying that you shouldn’t think you’ve learned any answers to my mysteries. I’m not that easy to solve.”

“That assumes I want to solve them.”

“Right. You like challenges you can handle with your bare hands, not your brain. That’s what I’m for.”

Thor forfeited by looking out at the ticking dashes of seagulls by the horizon. 

“I’d thank you, but I’m your sentient right arm. That would be indulgent.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t hear anything after ‘thank you.’”

“Hearing difficulties is a sign of congestion. Congestion is one of the first signs of the flu.”

“Who said they were difficulties? I like to think of them as… simplicities.”

“You at least caught my sense of humor.”

“Or mine cured yours. Fuck knows you needed it.”

When returning emails and phone calls and going over briefs snuck past sunrise, Thor baited Loki into staying the night again, testing for signs that any bullshit Loki might’ve said about babies had been true to add to his open case against Loki. “You look a little pale,” Thor said. Quite imaginative when Loki’s baseline complexion was ultra-pasteurized whole milk. But Loki could see clearly now and bid Thor goodnight, bag of potions in tow.

The little bit of sleep that came to him had nothing to do with Thor but everything to do with Loki’s bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thor — but in a Nurse Joy outfit. Eh? Eh?


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAha, so you know how I had those tech troubles! The way I jinxed myself! Anyway, new computer, who dis?
> 
> I'm posting two chapters as atonement for daring to speak ill of technology. Sorry, mama tech. Please spare me. 
> 
> Appendix  
> The English Patient - a 90s romantic movie about some sick dude played by Ralph Fiennes getting taken care of  
> Architectural Digest - a publication that covers architecture and interior design. It's cash.

An existential crisis checked in on him in Thor’s sheets, and left him staring, bereft, at the spotless ceiling, the witness of unspeakable atrocities conducted by Thor and faceless names, nameless faces over the years in addition to Loki’s _The English Patient_ audition.

Which would Loki be after his three years was up?

He couldn’t think too hard on that in the comfort of Thor’s bed because Thor decided that new year, new rules, and he was welcome to violate the sanctity of Loki’s ritual. He maintained his professionalism with the sheets around his waist while he reached for the clothes waiting at the end of Thor’s bed.

Thor cleared any uncertainty from his throat, uncertainty if it hadn’t been Thor, the most certain man to walk this planet or the next one. “I’ve been thinking, and um, it would be for the best if you moved in with me.”

He checked over his shoulder that it was the stoic mask Thor was wearing slipping on both his boxers and pants off the other side of the bed. “And that is a euphemism for…?”

“You should’ve been living with me, but it’s fine. You will now, and it’ll save us both a lot of extra effort. You could do this every night without a 45-minute drive.”

Thor’s talent for framing self-indulgence as mutual gain deserved a Nobel.

“I appreciate the offer, but I like my own space.”

“You would have your own space,” said Thor, bewildered at Loki daring to think otherwise. “We will be living together. That means it’s your space as much as it is mine.”

It was stunning, how willfully Thor had missed the point. “It doesn’t quite work that way.”

“Well, I’m making it.”

“That also doesn’t—”

“Do you not like the house?”

Loki could stand on his own without sheets with his sweater pulled into place. “ _Architectural Digest_ would be lucky to have it on the front cover.” 

“Then, I don’t see the issue. I have some guys on file that helped me when I moved in. Call them. They can meet you at your place. You can supervise them packing as I’m sure you’ll want to. And you can be finished by dinner.”

The conversation had not ended in agreement, but Thor was angling to go back to squinting in the sunlight downstairs.

Now, did Loki leave Thor’s house and return to his apartment to not do any of that? It shouldn’t have been a question. Though it was the first one out of Thor’s mouth, roughly, when Thor showed up to Loki’s apartment in the middle of Loki’s contemplating between refried rice or brown from that Mexican restaurant four blocks away, the first one of many when Thor saw that not a thing had moved besides Býleistr’s absent sneakers and jacket.

“I never agreed,” Loki said.

“What is there to agree with?” Thor had his phone out, his aversion to using it for more than commanding Loki around and looking at animal gifs that Loki snickered at either unnoticed or ignored over his shoulder forgotten. “We can get this done tonight. There’s still time.”

“Caltech’s microbiology department could use a new state-of-the-art lab. I don’t know if I mentioned that before, but I thought you might want to know that.”

Thor’s eyes narrowed a few millimeters. Give a gift to the person with the highest potential of stealing Loki’s attention away and have Loki yards away for his beck and call or refuse and then what? “I’ll call tomorrow.” 

For his participation, Thor had a grin from Loki who told him, “Let me go pack the important stuff. Give me a few minutes.”

Thor dispossessed Loki of several suitcases and bags but kept a titanium hold on his impassive righteousness. He could depend on his way getting to him eventually even if it had to dodge and duck around some obstacles, and that enticed him enough to engage in menial, manual labor like someone with a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of his net worth, like he couldn’t have hired a hundred thousand people to do the job with as much as he made in the time it took to load Loki’s bags in his car.

He wouldn’t have delegated pissing all over Loki to anyone else either.

Loki Laufeyson, Ph.D., Thor Odinson’s prized possession. He had to suppress the snort at the absurdity.

Loki had a Malibu beachfront view shoved in his face in some joint effort by Thor and California to convert him to the trite side, thrown in as an added bonus, a single wall, so thick it had to be soundproof, separating him from Thor. Thor, who had already rubbed himself on every surface, inviting Loki to “do whatever” he wanted to the room.

Thanking Thor would’ve been admitting that Thor had done him a favor when they were even at best.

“Come down for dinner in ten minutes.”

“Yes, Mr. Odinson.”

Thor paused to entertain himself with replying but remembered that right, Loki would’ve liked that, and besides Mars, his quest was to avoid improving Loki’s life at all costs unless it improved his too.

Ask Thor and he’d done Loki a favor upping the servings of impassive soul-gazing from the requisite shared lunch Monday through Friday and odd dinner overseas to three meals a day, seven days a week. Thor responding deadpan to Loki’s tries at jokes really rounded out the white wine Thor’d declined but Loki had nice full glasses of as Thor spoke.

“Good night,” said Thor, lingering behind Loki’s chair at the kitchen table, not the one at his desk.

“Night.”

Loki’s would’ve been sure the sheets in his bed were transferred from Thor’s if Thor’s bed weren’t fit for a truck instead of a small sedan. Thor had squeezed all the liquid from his body into the washer to make sure that Loki wouldn’t ever forget even in sleep.

Loki’s optical nerves were going to knot with the spike of eye rolls from cohabitating with this man.

#

Thor had his itinerary with his coffee and half a dozen eggs.

Loki’d had pain au chocolat and bacon crisped by magic and his tea prepared by the chef — they’d had Silver Rain on hand — who’d noted his request for Cocoa Puffs with a remark “just like the Pop Tarts,” after he’d pruned in the paradise shower attached to his bedroom. There were faint furrows in his fingers reading Thor his plans for the day.

Disregarding Thor, the filling, not the golden, meaty outside, having home be the same home in Thor’s mental representation jostled at the same place that the Caltech guarantee had. It was still Thor’s house like there’d been the possibility of some bitter pillar of shit with a professorship calling in an immense favor to get his acceptance revoked, but Thor’s kitchen was stocked with chocolate fudge. And if it wasn’t — oh, the possibilities of what the chef would remedy that with and how about how a late-night soak in the pool would diffuse the annoyances of the out of him? 

He let the five-minute buffer till the official end of his hours in-office he’d used to put on his coat, linger around his desk pass without acknowledgment.

Thor’s knuckles were unfazed by the metal of Loki’s desk when they knocked. “Let’s go.”

Casually, Loki let himself be ignored for the “good night”s employees had for Thor, held onto his smile if you squinted for dear life because Thor would’ve loved if Loki was eager, the validation that he’d allegedly been right.

Whoop-dee fucking doo, Thor had used induction and realized that his luxuries would scratch human Loki’s itches. For all that Loki supplied him with, a good shower and tasty food did not cover the cost, of which there was no debt owed to Thor for the sickness that would’ve solved itself.

So, Loki was empowered to peel off his sweater and pants in the living room to draw the cartoon bulging eye reflex out of Thor to add to the spank bank and plop into the pool and after a good swim, pull himself drenched out of it slowly to force Thor to grab the hard-on in his pants pocket tighter as Thor enjoyed the sunset from inside.

Loki was hired to be Thor’s day-ending glass of rum. It’d be like the billionaire to turn that glass into the entire bottle, and fuck if he wasn’t sharing it with Loki.


	21. Chapter 21

“I haven’t been getting pictures from you” sucker punted the good mornings out of the way.

What could be the only pictures that Thor the Amish-man cared about? Hm, such a profound question that Loki had to consider over his Earl Grey.

Right. “It’d be strange if you were seeing as how they weren’t sent.”

“Why not?”

“I live next door and scent your sheets daily. And you have a fair share of pictures. Your imagination doesn’t need assistance anymore.”

“Then, why not only send videos? You’re right. The pictures wouldn’t cut it anymore anyway with you being next door.”

“Is this a request?”

“If you want it to be.” That bit of business taken care of, Thor asked about Loki’s “TL;DR” of a 100-page paper on renewables by a prospective ECE sniping from NASA. His cock was the sturdy base of his own individualized hierarchy of needs, and Loki was the support beam between Cock and Green energy, between Cock and Mars, the world and Mars, Atlas.

Atlas rubbed. And tugged and fingered and fucked for the persistent red dot on Loki’s phone screen, background the marigold verification of the sheets Loki’d yet to steer the housekeeper away from. Faceless, voiceless but white-full and pink-full.

Mid-toothbrush, he prologued good morning following up Thor’s last “ok” with it. 

No need to ask Thor if he’d gotten it when Thor’s shell-shock rushing to cram eggs into his mouth responded fine.

“Are you alright?”

“Great.”

“You don’t seem like it.”

Thor chewed, breathed, relishing in it like it was a miracle. “I’m not going to repeat myself.”

And you treated others like you wanted to be treated, no?

Thor acted like Loki was an automated greeter toeing the lines of its programming when he dared to shake the hand of the mastermind of Leiptr’s Napoleonic conquering of the automotive world and user of commas, a rare in the upper echelons of the email world. Thus, Loki acted like he’d forgotten nothing at breakfast.

Nothing for Thor to be checking his phone before and after his showers over or for Thor to aim the squint of contempt at Loki’s phone after seeing that the camera worked fine for Loki to adjust his collar in.

Requests were voluntary after all.

Desperation in Charcoal Gray and the gunner sales rep turned swiss cheese man — how Thor could find strangers’ soft spots, it was gourmet — had lost that knowledge along the way and bent backwards into expert origami to abide by Thor’s requests for better, borderline sadistic deals, but Loki’s morning routine had no home movie sharing.

Loki selflessly donated Thor an inch. Thor wanted a light-year, but if Thor truly wanted it, he was going to have to take it. Implicitly admit that just the whole bottle gave him the shakes and he wanted, no, needed more of Loki.

Loki dependence.

He had such great burdens on him — Loki. Mars was hell on the shoulders, especially when you didn’t have Thor’s, but nothing a long steep in the hotel’s clawfoot wouldn’t soothe.

The bubbles popped a little differently.

They had a new body to reverberate off of.

Thor’s shirt buttons were torn away from their buttonholes.

“I was going to come get you,” Loki said. “After I actually had a chance to enjoy the bath.”

Priv-fucking-yet, Comrade Cock. It’d be too long of a time, no see.

“Don’t worry about it.” His dry hand gave Loki’s back the universal “scoot” nudge, which would’ve been ignored if there weren’t Cock at the cliff of Loki’s periphery, Cock in the flesh.

The extra, literal inch Loki gifted to Thor was consumed by that special flesh warmth as Thor echoed Loki in his massive, excessive way, thighs engulfing Loki’s thighs, arms usurping Loki’s on the rim.

Cock nestled between Loki’s lower cheeks.

Thor’s nose was not unfamiliar on his neck, Earth to Loki’s jolting nerves. Neither was the claustrophilia his body Stockholmed itself into in the shadow of Thor’s everything.

Tough love relocated Loki’s back to the more neutral zone of Thor’s thigh, knees to his chest deflecting the intrusiveness of Thor’s soul-groping stare. “Sleepless in Saint Petersburg?”

“I’ve been sleeping shittily everywhere.”

“Oh. Sorry to hear that. You should really see a sleep specialist. It seems like it happens monthly.”

“But it’s not the sleep that’s the common denominator.”

Loki, the common denominator, asked, “Then, what is?”

Thor’s fingertips drummed on the tub. He glanced over at the Tsar-Nicholas-era painting majesticing all over them. When Thor’s eyes came back, they’d gone to the dark side. “You wouldn’t mind me helping you get off, would you?”

The bubbles stopped popping.

“It’d just be like you doing it alone except I’d be touching you. That wouldn’t be too weird. It’s not like I haven’t seen it all.”

The importance of Thor’s peripherals became more and more apparent when he tried to talk Loki into anything.

“You want to masturbate me?”

“You told me how to. This isn’t much of a difference.”

“So, you do remember that. Huh.”

The water sloshed with Thor’s agitated leg motion, Cock slipping over his abs from midnight to a hard 10:00. “I can barely sleep some nights because I’m so fucking horny. The pictures, they’re good, but like you said, you’re next door. Right there touching yourself. I think if I have some… closure, I’ll be fine. It’s not like—”

Loki metaphorically put a finger to Thor’s lips perching his ass on the tub’s rim. One hand bracing him from gently braining himself on the rug, he, with the enthusiasm of a straight boy bribed by a deep-throating pervert for a sketchy porn site, let his over-enthusiastic cock and swollen twat finally have their face time with Thor. “You were saying you wanted to get me off?”

Thor wanted it more than he wanted the air to try to understate it to Loki. He got breath-tickling-Loki’s-lower-lips levels of close, eyes shutting out the view for him to take a deep breath of Loki, his communion. All of the good Thor’d done, he couldn’t deny himself resolution, feed himself — metaphorically — what he’d been carrot-dangled. Thor’s fingertips touched Loki’s hole irreverently and brought forth the tribute of an average cock’s worth of Thor’s fingers — two — pushing in a bearable stretch, Thor’s nucleus-deep “fucking hell. Even tighter than I imagined” an honorary extra finger.

Thor’s fingers were greedy and bottomed out, and that was it — Thor was in his territory. He answered to Loki. “Bend your — yes, just like that.” Precisely like that, upping the pleasurable pressure queued up at the base of his cock. “What’s your other hand going to do?”

Thor’s pupils watched his eyes for the null reaction while that other hand made itself useful on Loki’s cock, overloading it with a spiteful excess of the friction it was overdue for. But Loki’s cock wasn’t all meek to Thor’s hand, was its kindred spirit, proudly filling it up and basking in the calluses, the stamps of authentic handy-man Thor.

Thor rumbled. “Such a pretty fucking cock.”

The pain-pleasure tug of war of Thor’s thumb strumming his frenulum — Loki had to bite his inner cheek.

His hand found hair, Thor’s hair, a smooth flipside to Thor’s hands. Thor’s precious hair, Loki pet it. “Mm, stroke longer. And twist your wrist.”

The halo of those fingers being Thor’s star-seeking fingers dimmed down when the stretch became a new normal, which just not going to do. No. Loki wasn’t one of those eager-to-please nobodies throbbing to be Thor’s hole. He grabbed Thor’s finger-fucking wrist, and the confusion stopped Thor more than that, let Loki direct Thor’s shiny, sticky fingers out of him and direct Thor, “Give me a third finger.”

That extra single-finger thickness had potential, potential that Loki guided into himself, the stretch, finally, getting there with a wet suck of his hole.

“Fuck, look how wet you are,” said Thor as his fingers filled Loki right up. “Always so wet for me.”

“For you?” His legs didn’t want to stay open when Thor jammed the deepest end, but Loki made them.

“For me.”

For Thor, he could’ve out-performed Astroglide. It had nothing on him, his hole, letting Thor’s fingers slide out when Loki pulled and sucking them right back in when Loki pushed. Deep and brutally hard he was showing Thor. But slow, borderline tortuously. Thor could get on board with that, took over the mechanics and freed Loki’s hand to go back into his hair.

Thor’s hand abandoned its post on his cock, but the guttural sound of Thor spitting into it balanced the scales. When Thor sloppily smeared his warm, thick spit onto Loki’s cock, only by a miracle did Loki not cum.

“Oh, I’m close.”

“I feel it.” Thor’s chuckle was illegal. “You’re going to cum for me.”

No, he wasn’t. Not for a few more seconds of Thor jerking his cock and fucking his hole. After that?

“Oh, that’s it, Loki. Fuck.”

Cum, his cum on Thor’s fucking mouth. It belonged there, on his mouth and on his tit and his abs, all over his abs, and fuck, on his Cock. Loki’s entire being shuddered as his nervous system red-lined as Thor’s fingers scooped Loki’s cum up and onto Thor’s Cock while his other fingers, fingers covered in Loki’s pussy juice, they dove into Thor’s Loki-cum-covered mouth. They gagged Thor’s on-the-brink-of-death groan, his Cock wield by some invisible blur, one that slowed into a hand when white gold erupted from Thor’s Cock head. His knot bulged his fist while it rained cum upward, a hot slash on Loki’s shin, on his inner thigh, on his knuckles.

Thor was a fucking cum strudel.

As Thor sagged against the bathtub, holding his knot and a small country of their babies all over him, Loki hand-rinsed himself as cum-less as demanded by the sanity draining back in.

Sanity stepped him out of bath and got him in a robe and had him on a safe, flat surface when the Thor that in some sense, despised him and considered him a weighted blanket with baggage, reunited with the Thor that’d been jerking him off and glazed in his cum.

This landed closer to anonymous porn shop glory hole hand jobs and headless jerk off sessions with strangers on web cam sites than something like an emotionally meaningful orgasm. Loki’s only netted emotion was euphoria, a fair trade for the serenity he’d given Thor. 

Loki was shrugging on a dressing gown when Thor appeared in the nightstand lamp’s reflection drying his hair. He glanced at Thor to show him there was nothing to hide. “Will that be all you need of me tonight?”

“Yeah. Get some sleep. Flight leaves early tomorrow.”

“Will do.”

#

“You look like you slept well” got a simper — a grin when converted to Loki currency — and a long flight of Thor, his fingers that’d been in and around Loki easily falling back into clenching and pen-gripping, dictating emails stuffed with superlatives, gold-plated shits vengefully dropped into the begging hands of mistakenly elected “Rotten Nutsacks” and signs from God himself beamed down to worker bees in “keep up the good work”s.

Loki didn’t get those. His important work gratified him. Right?

For efficiency sake, taking notes from his boss’ perpetual optimizing, Loki spared Thor of the effort of cutting into Loki’s shower for another desperate handjob when “horny” started cannibalizing “sleep” and crammed a cumshot all over himself for Thor to wind down from his morning run to. 

“You alright?”

Before popping in the piece of Madeleine, Loki asked, “Why?”

Thor had no answer, not one that wouldn’t have amounted to begging, and he’d met his lifetime quota for that in Russia. Never again, especially not when he’d had a perfectly adequate orgasm thanks to Loki earlier. “Nothing.”

But everything really. 

#

Thor was inside having dinner with the Panasonic reps, and Loki had exhausted his limited Japanese hours ago, and they were willing to use English off-the-record, excluding any need for Loki to be there.

His personal phone pinged with an email from one “Donald Blake.”

“ _If you need help finding my office, here_ _’s a map one of my students kindly drew from the math building here 😊_

_If Thor keeps you too busy, you could text me too._ _”_

It was a fairly good map for being done in dry erase marker.

Donald was someone that would answer a call at 7:00 am back in LA.

“You found the only person with some semblance of art talent on campus,” Loki said.

“Draw enough enzymes and you miraculously become Picasso. If microbiology falls through, I have a career in abstract art ahead of me.”

“You should draw me like one of your retroviruses.”

“And you don’t have a career in comedy.”

Loki asked him about his research. No, to answer that question of Thor from months ago, Loki didn’t love microbiology, so Thor could spare any additional department-wide endowments, but Donald went on and on about it like he’d been married for twenty happy years to it and the flame of their passion had never dulled. And he wasn’t a choice of “why not?” He actively wanted to tell Loki.

It would never be a thought on Thor’s mind, “I can’t wait to tell Loki about this.” Why would it? They were boss and employee, not friends and especially not ones with benefits. Thor could’ve only been clearer about that if he named his next rocket “I’m not your friend, Loki.”

“Did you hear me? I could barely hear myself over those horns.”

“No, I heard you fine. I’m in downtown Tokyo.”

“Wow. I get how it’d be hard to stop by my office from there.”

Thor was the one coming out of the restaurant.

“I’ll try my best to stop by your office when I get back,” Loki told Donald.

“Don’t be afraid to use the map. Safe travels.”

“Have a good morning.”

Thor came to a stop as Loki ended the call. “I thought you left to ‘enjoy the cityscape.’ Tough to do that when you’re smiling down at the sidewalk.”

“I’m an expert multitasker. It says it on the job description.”

“Who was that?”

“A friend of mine from back at MIT. I know. Surprising that I have friends.”

“A friend or a ‘friend’?”

Cursive font spelled out “Ex-Assistants to the Stars _Spill_ All the Wackiest Requests” in glossy magazines, and “’they didn’t want me to date anyone because they thought it’d be a distraction’” and all its doppelgangers highlighted in yellow, radiation warning sign yellow. 

Loki replied, “A friend.”

Thor’s head took the nods like someone with nothing weighing their mind. There were flecks of neon pink and green in his eyes as he watched the verboten gas cars cruise by.

Before Thor could ask what he couldn’t have been asking, Loki hugged him — arms around Thor’s neck, chin over Thor’s shoulder, his heartbeat against Thor’s. He handed over his knees’ job to Thor, the burden of him nothing for Thor.

Thor’s arms couldn’t resist the exhibit B for how formidable he was that wrapping around Loki’s middle was. That went straight to the ego, consolation that his soul jar was at his mercy should he have decided to put Loki over his shoulder and hole up in a moat-surrounded castle to personally build a rocket to Mars. Or if Loki should’ve told him no, well, there were resources at Thor’s disposal that would’ve made it not a no as far as Thor was concerned.

Why was that a massive turn-on?

Before his hard-on could introduce itself to Thor, he undid his arms and guided Thor’s to do the same.

“What was that for?” asked Thor.

“You’re always giving out hugs to employees. I was curious.” Not hugs like that but better wasn’t a bad thing.

Thor touched his back above his ass and said, “I didn’t know you liked hugs. Sober at least.”

The driver was holding open the car door.

“Not from everyone.”

The curves of Thor’s minimalist ultra luxe watch gave themselves to Loki’s fingers to trace during the drive back to their hotel, Thor’s skin warm catching Loki’s fingertips. 


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New year's resolution: finding out a way to schedule posts to AO3.
> 
> Appendix  
> Poule Roti - an whole roast chicken  
> tete-a-tete - means head to head, a chat

As a rocket launch virgin, Loki was well within his rights to geek out at the skyscraper in shape of one that would be in literal outer space in hours.

If Thor ever had a reason to feel like the Prime Mover.

“Regret not going into Aerospace Engineering?”

“Clearly, you have it all handled.”

Thor’s eyes took a break from his latest one-up of humanity as a whole. “It’s gorgeous.”

“A modern marvel. To think that one day you’ll be able to share this with your kids. ‘Look at this rocket that Daddy built.’ How many people throughout history can say that?”

Knee-high, adorably rumpled blonds all clinging to their share of Thor. Rosy cheeks and pure sugar cane awe, knowing nothing about rockets or space but only that dear Daddy did something special.

“I remember when my father used to take me to the air fields when I was young. That was how he started — fighter jet pilot in the army. Anyway, he still had some contacts. We’d go and watch the prototypes. Hearing them take off — that roar — unforgettable. I’d be scared shitless but in a good way, you know?” Didn’t Loki ever. “He would explain to me how it all worked, lift, propulsion. Didn’t understand a lot of it until later. But he did. He knew how these incredible machines worked. And I wanted to too.”

“Seeing as how it’s the most powerful rocket in history, it seems you did eventually. You and Dr. B and your symphony orchestra of the best and brightest. I bet your father didn’t quite see this coming when he built model rockets with you.”

Welcome to the brow furrow. “I’ve never told anyone about that. Besides Bruce.”

“Pictures say a thousand words. Though half were ‘adorable.’”

“I might as well give the photo albums to you. You appreciate them more than me.”

“Someone has to. Imagine what Little You would think.”

Thor didn’t seem like one for retrospection but he couldn’t resist a chance for a back pat, could he? “He’d think it should be more red.”

“I’m sure Dr. B could be talked into it. Right, Dr. B?”

Bruce and the glower he carted over to them said, “I’m sorry, but I didn’t hear a thing you said, Loki, because my mind’s too full of the wall of noise from the reporters that’ve decided to camp out. Thor, buddy what the hell? I thought we weren’t going to turn this into a media circus.”

“Yeah, but it’s a historical achievement. You can’t expect people to not take notice.”

“How about from afar? Or even on the end of a press release after the flight hasn’t gone up in flames?”

“It’s not going to go up in flames—”

“So we both hope, but hope hasn’t saved us a few billion dollars in scorched rocket parts.”

“You’re being pessimistic—”

“No rocket like this has been launched. Do you know why? Because no one is crazy enough—”

“Four unsuccessful launches, Bruce. Four. Out of 53. Three this year have been successful already. The last unsuccessful one was over a year and a half ago. We had some slip-ups, but we’ve hit our stride. Doubt yourself all you want, but do you doubt me? After all these years?”

Even Bruce didn’t have total immunity. “The reporters, Thor. Alright?”

“Taken care of. Go to mission control. Sit back. Crack an, um — that fermented stuff—”

“Kombucha,” Loki offered.

“That. Go have one of those. Keep the champagne warm before I get there.”

“You hate champagne too,” Bruce said.

“Which is why we’ll be pouring glasses for everybody else.” With Bruce’s paranoia kicking his invincible sense of infallibility into over-drive, Thor beckoned Loki to “come on,” leading him to the taped off pit of journalisms best and brightest because Thor might’ve been many things, but forgiving to critical headlines wasn’t one of them.

“It’s more than twice more powerful than the current most powerful rocket running,” Thor’s lips read to the _BBC_ and _Associated Press_ as he glowed with their ravenous appetite for his attention, MIA sun unneeded.

“Could you tell us anything about the rocket?” asked Icelandic, not to Thor but to Loki as per the eyes the reporter had on him.

“I can.” He’d read the pieces of its _How It_ _’s Made_ through emails and reports and blueprints and could’ve written a _For Dummies_ on how to build it but stopped short at explaining to Iceland’s _R_ _ÚV_ and Norway’s own _NRK,_ yes, even the Swedes and Danes and Finns why this was a plus fifty to Scandinavian national pride and another few wins to Norway. 

“Are you an engineer?” had been coming.

“No, but I have five STEM degrees. Laufeyson, Dr. Loki Laufeyson.”

Loki’s watch had perfect timing for him to thank them all for coming and wish them well on the flight back to the better land. He interrupted Thor’s rambling with a hand to Thor’s arm. “We’re out of time.”

Thor’s high was too strong for him to kill the messenger this time. He threw out his thank yous and all but gleefully headed for the control room or as it should’ve been called, the Capital of Shat Pants.

The average acolyte was more of the Bruce mindset than Thor, just less so because of ambition for furthering humanity and ones own goals and more so because of fear of disappointing Thor and their families toting home a SpaceA brown-box and pink slip.

A feast of data lured Loki in to savor the raw computing power behind the complaining some retirees near Disney World would soon do over the rattling commemorative silverware. They were Thor’s people. They were secure in their expertise, too secure to not irritatedly look down their noses to explain like Loki was a high-school-grad-only.

If Loki replying in programmerese how he would’ve implemented it — a far superior way — stunned a pencil neck into missing some important stage of the launch, well, SpaceA employee training should’ve included lessons in not being a dickhead.

A 4k live stream complete with expert commentary of a rocket propelling itself against a fundamental force of nature. The footy fan like cheering once the rocket didn’t explode on ignition or shower the launch pad in its corpse could only be head-shaken at.

It ranked as surreal as looking Stephen Hawking in the eye that a decision by the same person that’d eaten an entire Poule Roti while describing his idea for a “truck that would change life as they knew it,” yes, a decision by them had a long, metal can hurdling at sonic speeds into the sky where the blue was dark because of underlying outer fucking space.

Thor had decided that this object was going to space, and so, it was.

Power like that didn’t come packaged in humans.

At the back of it all, arms crossed, Thor’s eyes reflected the gentle chaos he’d created.

When Loki looked back, there were clouds scattered over the bit of globe that black of space let into the other angle’s picture. It wasn’t totally incorrect for Thor to say that he’d been to space.

And if that weren’t impressive enough, Thor’d been to space and come back — intact.

It was worthy of hugging and screaming and cheering, Thor landing in one piece.

Thor had an arm around Bruce’s shoulders.

“Congratulations, Dr. B. This is quite the achievement.”

“Yeah. I’m relieved I can fade back into obscurity until the next time one of these rolls around instead of damage control meetings. That reminds me. Let me escape while I can.”

Thor smiled fondly at the back of Bruce. “His way of celebrating. Never changes.”

“Another universal constant for when you inevitably surpass the light barrier.”

Pride fit badly around the shoulders, dinged paternalistic almost, too parent on a playground for the glow around Loki for Thor and his level cleared in the Great March to Mars. “I’m… happy this went well.”

An incoming high five derailed Thor’s train of thought from Loki back toward the mainland of limitless staff who’d labored for the chance to have their palms touch Thor’s. Loki moved himself out of their way, but he couldn’t go much farther than a step, tethered by the extra meter of arm that’d grown out of his at the forearm.

Thor’s side stopped Loki from phasing through Thor when yanked.

“Stay close,” Thor murmured into his ear. His hand reinforced the command.

Loki made the most of it and shook and high-fived hands too. The right-hand of God. It really could be an illustrious place. First or technically, second choice of bubbly and hors d'oeuvre, an uninterrupted stream of the off-the-cuff speech about the future to thousands, the real, Bruce’s lonerism be damned, constant of the crinkles at the corners of Thor’s eye when he dared to exist. And after all of that, he got Thor to himself.

Thor sighed into the car seat. It was very picture worthy, but with no picture, it was only Loki’s properly.

“You’re going to be a very cool dad one day, Thor.”

“’Cool.’ Not ‘good’?”

“I only know one of those things for sure.”

Thor’s hand made itself at home on Loki’s thigh, and Loki wasn’t too consumed with a desire for it to roam a bit upward. Its presence wasn’t unpleasant.

#

 _60 Minutes_ had the exclusive interview with Thor from a never-before-seen angle, and as Thor’s right and left hand and sometimes right leg, Loki had the duty to send to “employees-mailing-list@spac.ea” and “employees-mailing-list@leip.tr” a reminder to tune in to see it live Sunday night at 7:00.

In 15 minutes, Loki — and Thor as well — were sent invitations to no less than eight watch parties, some of which were being held by “Avionics,” “Engineering Design,” and both “Engine Research” departments.

“I hate watching myself on TV,” said Thor. “It’s weird. I was there. I don’t need to see it again.”

“Afraid you’ll end up Narcissus-ing yourself?”

Loki was growing a deep affection for this hybrid of disbelief and disgust on Thor. “I think that’s just you.”

“Who said I was afraid?”

Sunday night put them in Singapore where _60 Minutes_ wasn’t standard dawn fare, but that was nothing some searching and link-clicking couldn’t fix.

After knowing Thor in the meat world, seeing him in pixels made Loki giddy with the weirdness of it. Thor explaining his motivations for trying to better life not only here but only two planets in his casual way came off like hearing a story for the second time told to another person, anticipating the eyebrow raise when mentioning how little of the world had access to electricity and the matter-of-fact annoyance when discussing those “human barriers” that called themselves politicians and leaders.

“But why?” asked the journalist. They asked on behalf of the Americans that simply could not conceive that Thor was doing this selflessly. “What fuels you to want to renewably fuel the world?”

Here was the audio that went along with the video Loki’d seen live of them in the capsule.

Thor pointlessly reiterated that he was empathetic, a trait not enshrined in American culture but was in Scandinavia, even Sweden, but had gotten wise to the wants of these people he’d made himself one of. “I’m starting a family soon, and I couldn’t in good conscience bring kids into this world knowing that there’s a possibility they won’t be able to enjoy it like I do.”

Given that Thor had no significant others to speak of, the journalist was intrigued by that, asked, “How do you manage to balance this great goal with a personal life?”

“I don’t separate, so there’s no need for a balance.”

The HR departments at both SpaceA and Leiptr were frantically scrolling through the photo rolls of employees Thor encountered on a daily basis to find who they were going to need to slip a check to.

“Is that really the trick? Wow. When can we expect nuptials? Are will you be waiting until you can do it on Mars?”

“I don’t think they’d wait around that long. Vow renewal maybe.”

Laughs. Moving on back to Thor explaining why electricity was a human right with gratuitous close-ups of how good he still looked in the welding mask in the machine shop.

Millions of people would’ve been rushing to Google “Thor girlfriend,” but Loki instead cut off Thor’s direct path to the front door for his morning run and told him, “You’re quite the futurist, do you know that?”

Thor exhaled the laugh he let himself have through his mouth. “Tony already has that name claimed for all his ridiculously shaped cars.”

“I usually flat-out lie when someone asks about my personal life, but you just spoke about the far future like it was a sure-thing. I don’t know why I don’t do that more.”

“Because you like lying.”

“No, I don’t.”

Thor had mastered the “Really?” look. “Did you like it?”

“It was okay until you turned around the prying into your personal life into a psychological exercise. Then, it became by far my favorite.”

Thor’s furrowed brow was confused about what Loki was talking about. “Personal life?”

“You know, ‘blah, blah, blah, saving the world for my kids. Blah, blah, blah, I absolutely have a personal life.’”

“I have a personal life.”

“I don’t remember your calendar or any of the emails saying that.”

“There’s time you don’t spend with me.” No. No, there wasn’t.

“This future spouse of yours, either they’re a very open-minded person, or you’re hiding a lot from them.”

“You caught me,” said Thor, throwing up his hands apathetically. As he circumnavigated Loki, he announced that he was going to the gym.

“Maybe you’ll run into your future spouse on your way there!”

#

The debate in Icelandic at a table for two with a man dressed in a bear costume evicted Loki.

If sleep was going to give him the cold shoulder yet again, Loki could match the energy and remove even the temptation by heading for less sleep-biased pastures. Did you know what the kitchen had that bed didn’t? Fruit cake. And keeping within the theme, a banana to dip into chocolate mousse.

Loki had it made. Over in front of the couch for a hockey squad, the projector covered an entire wall in his sims shared from his supercomputer over on campus.

It was the pillow. That could be safely concluded. The pillow he’d been sleeping on had been all wrong, and that was why he kept waking up in the middle of the night. On the other hand, Thor had fine pillows and loads of them. He wouldn’t miss one or two.

They’d gone 50/50 on those pillows — Thor participating in their purchase, Loki making them usable for Thor to lay on. They belonged to him as much as they did to Thor. Better yet, the bed itself did. Of the two of them, a paternity test would’ve found Loki to be the father of that bed for all of the DNA he’d donated to its viability. And Thor, he hadn’t even needed that to help himself to Loki’s back at his apartment even before he’d taken over rent.

As he’d done on his own bed, he felt himself to Thor’s — ahem, theirs in the total dark and claimed space for himself. Thor might as well have not been there if not for the breaths coming out of the dark on the bed’s other side with how much bed there was, not that it being a twin wouldn’t have changed that Loki had a right to pull the duvet around him, have a lungful of the imprint Thor’d left on the pillow, and shut his eyes.

A touch, five of them, brought him to life. Thor’s fingertips had otherworldly weight taking their time down Loki’s back, remote-controlled by a conscious brain on the end of that strong arm. They pulled back. Thor’s bare footsteps led to faucet led to the waterfall noise of shower spray.

The faithful question: to linger or not to linger?

His toothbrush charging in his own en suite gave him a decision assist.

The Madeleine was a cherry on top of the ache-less, well-rested body sundae.

Thor buttoned the cuff of a purple dress shirt coming to heed the call of coffee. “Did I wake you?”

Yes, but in Thor’s apocrypha, Loki was a heavy sleeper, so “No, you were gone when I woke up.”

“Mm,” he said, drinking his coffee. “Well, as you know, I have a lot of room in my closet. Drawers, shelves. I’m sure you can figure it all out.”

“That won’t be necessary. It’s not exactly a long walk, Thor.”

“But you don’t have to do it.”

Anyway, Thor’s tete-a-tete with Los Angeles’ mayor was in four hours, before which Thor had to survive through a conference call with one of his favorite generals — and by favorite, Loki meant Thor’d expressed interest in “wearing him like a bracelet.” Where Loki’s clothes were was, surprisingly, lower priority.

Regardless, Loki underneath the clothes sleeping on his own bed at night had higher priority than that. As long as his body was in that bed, all was well. Thor pretended to not notice him coming in post-night routine, gripping his Brian Greene, heir to Sagan, book tighter, but when he thought Loki was consumed with tucking himself in, his eyes flicked over.

Loki laugh reacted to Býleistr’s last text from whichever edge of the world he was assassinating people.

“No—”

“—phones in bed,” finished Loki as he laid his phone to rest on the nightstand. “I was lucid to remember that.”

“Good.”

Loki single wield an ear bud for the late-night delight of a historical crime podcast.

“You don’t have to sleep at the edge,” Thor interrupted. “I mean, you’re pretty far over there.”

“I’m fine.”

“Well. Don’t wake me up when you fall off.”

For Thor’s obvious anxiety, Loki unenthusiastically dunked himself in Thor’s body heat, cranking his nervous system glow to max. His cock went on stand-by. “Subtlety is really not a strength of yours, Thor.”

“Hm but it worked.”

Loki jammed in the second bud and shut his eyes.

Thor got to a stopping point he, cursedly, bunny-eared to bookmark and laid down on his side, of course facing Loki to torment him with up-close scrutiny. Too bad for Thor, Loki was a gold medalist starer, and Thor didn’t hurt to look at.

He was on his back, pushed by the hand covering his chest. Thor claimed the unlocked spot from Loki’s shoulder to ear, upgrading from hand to an arm that reduced Loki’s lung capacity by a whole percent though what Loki did get in was full of Thor.

Not to mention the stiff, warm rise-and-shine against his thigh. The Line — Loki never touched Thor, no. Thor was the one who moved relative to Loki, and he’d moved his Cock to warp the Line in its shape. Loki was minding his own business sleepily thigh shifting, and Thor’s Cock was elucidating on how heavy it was, how it only resisted so much.

A bass chord from Thor’s neck tapered off Loki’s sleepy shifting. Then, eyelashes swept against his ear, and Thor was considering — to wank or not to wank… now.

Because Thor’d not hesitated in Loki’s bed. Why would he refrain in his own? Thor’s Cock departed without a peep besides Thor’s fist-print stealing its place. Thor breathed how much of a relief sticking his Cock into it was against Loki’s neck.

“Stop. That tickles,” mumbled Loki.

The tense on Thor’s part served him right. Loki hadn’t been finished with his Cock.

“Are you awake?”

“No, Thor.” He kept his eyes shut. “I’m talking in my sleep.”

Suddenly, a weight was off Loki’s chest, literally, metaphorically because his cock had the attention it’d been pandering for via Thor’s relocated hand. Thor’s hand for Leader of the fucking World, disregarding Loki’s boxers for that delectable skin-on-rough-mechanic-skin contact. Opening his eyes to Thor’s hyperfocused stare dangled in front of his shut eyelids, but Loki channeled that into, “Mm, that might wake me up.”

Loki’s cock was vicariously Thor’s getting stroked in the same merciless straightforward, base-to-tip, tip-to-base, strokes Thor’s Cock did. Thor’d tamed the beast like this. Loki didn’t have a chance no matter how hard he clenched his ass and deprived Thor of whatever Loki’s eyes might’ve done.

“Come on. Cum for me.”

He gasped for survival as his cock spewed his life force out onto his straining stomach, Thor going, “Good, baby. Good,” while he caressed his fist over Loki’s cock and swept up already cooling cum, starting to reheat on Thor’s hand and hot again when Thor pushed his boxers down the rest of the way and lubed his cock up with it.

Right behind Thor’s underground moans was white lava splattering on Loki’s last rib, overfilling his bellybutton, frosting the tips of his pubes, oozing particles of Thor into his pores and follicles that’d evade even soap. Just as Thor intended, panting over his hard job well-done.

Loki tested that his buzzing extremities worked finger-painting with their gooey Punnet squares across his stomach.

At peace, Thor held his knot.

Loki stopped being in bed for his alarm set 45 allegedly indulgent minutes after Thor’s.

#

“I’m happy I didn’t have to wait until I file my lawsuit to see you again,” Loki told Darcy.

As the cogs in Thor’s brain fleshed out why his instinct was annoyed, Darcy replied, “Uh, me too?” while she sat in the seat that Loki beat Thor to pulling out for her, another strike for the side-eye toward Loki he had loading. “Aw, chivalry,” she said, but she was grabbing Loki’s wrist with her perfect, playful purple manicure. She lightly slapped his hand. “Bad. Bad Loki. No jokes about getting boinked by your boss with his lawyer. Workplace sexual harassment is a serious issue, okay?”

“It is,” said Thor, rattling a decade of painless walking off of Loki’s knee with his. “So, tell me all the good news.”

From in-house counsel, all news that didn’t ping a Google News alert was the good news — petty claims for billions of dollars from nobodies in nowhere whose favorite headgear came in tinfoil that Thor’d stolen their ideas, the fishing for ideas disguised as threats from Boeing and friends about patent infringement, and best of all, the disgruntled families of the burnt out acolytes trying to follow the immortal leader.

“I tell them to take care of themselves. What use are you to anyone if you’re in shit shape?” Thor asked, nonchalant and unapologetic gesturing with a piece of speared steak in one hand.

“Taking care of yourself can be mutually exclusive of your professional goals,” Loki said.

“Then, you need to get a new career. Don’t see what’s so hard about that.”

“Yeah, you’re not totally out of touch or anything,” said Darcy. “But that’s why you’re going to get us to Mars.”

Loki paused before popping a cherry tomato in. “Is he?”

“I am,” Thor said. “Anyway, they make their choices. It’s not always the best choice, and I’m sorry that they didn’t make better ones, but… they know what they sign up for. I personally interview everyone. Both of you, I told you what to expect. Hard work.”

Hard, turgid work.

“We’re having a workplace wellness day. We’re doing good with keeping the lawsuits to an annual minimum. Kinda defeats the purpose if all that money goes to paying off employee’s families because they did a—” Darcy made a very accurate noose gesture.

The waiter had seen too many Hollywood meltdowns to be fazed asking about dessert.

Darcy went in on a petit gateau with Loki.

“Would you like an after-dinner wine?”

“Nope. Just a refill on the water.”

In solidarity, Loki turned down wine too, and for Thor, wine was a worst case scenario.

“No wine?” Thor asked Darcy. “What happened to, uh, ‘when the sky falls, I’ll have a glass in my hand’?”

“Need to become a mom first to become a wine mom.” Darcy looked at them both as the exploded into rattles and pacifiers. “Oh, right. Surprise! Guess who’s pregnant?”

“That’s, that’s incredible,” said Thor. “I mean — um—?”

“Ian who is your counsel in England—”

“Right. I knew that. I went to your wedding.” Which was one of the many sandwiched between work, working out, and work. “Kudos to him. To both of you. Wow. Pregnant. I really need to get a start on that, or who are they going to play with? All of these people’s kids?”

A rare instance of Thor admitting that he had the care to have thoughts let alone less than favorable ones about other people.

“What do you think?” Thor was asking Loki. “Could put off leaving for Norway for a few years, toughen them up raising them here?” Funny. “Can’t sue me if it wasn’t my idea, right?” he asked Darcy. “He’s the one who suggested we have ‘lots’ of babies.”

Loki neither denied nor confessed because all words under the influence of drugs did not count.

“Well, some of that sounds like a valid idea to me. Listen, we’ve been waiting years for you to give us some chubby cheek angel babies. Years. Not that they’re going to hold a candle to mine. But at this point — look, if you’re going to go screw company code like rabbits, I’m just sayin’ that you might as well sketch up the condoms to make it worth all our time.”

Thor laughed. “I’d be the one poking holes in condoms.”

“Ooh. Press pause. That’s a big yikes, you know, because of the whole power difference between boss and employee? You doing it is coercion. Him, that’s an iffy decision that I”—cake bite—“do not”—more cake—“condone.”

HR’s turncoat advocate told them to be on the lookout for a baby shower invite in the fall when her tongue-in-cheek pant suits were tailored in watermelon size, and she took a whole chocolate cake to-go. 

“Things told under the influence of drugs are usually held in confidence,” he told Thor.

“Even lies?” Thor smiled over the top of his car. “Everyone wants me to start a family.”

“You and your mighty push-pin.”

“The hell does a power dynamic have to do with the joke? It’s a good one.”

“I agree. I’m on birth control. You’d just be wasting a condom.”

The ghost of Thor’s mental “days since last rut” haunted him, pausing his hands while they tried to start the car. “Right.”


End file.
